Becoming
by FanfictionWriter83729
Summary: 07Movie, not 09 compliant, complete. Through questions of who you’ve been, who you are, and who you are becoming, Bumblebee and Mikaela try to reclaim a companion.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

**Summary: **Oneshot, post-movie. Who are you, if your body is no longer yours? Who are you, if your memories are taken away? These are the questions that haunt "humans" and Autobots alike as they try to reclaim a companion.

**Acknowledgements: **A big thanks to Elariel, who gave me a lot of ideas on how to deal with this bunny!

**WARNING: **Fervent nods to MGS4's Beauty and the Beast unit, in particular Screaming Mantis. So…potential spoilers.

* * *

Becoming

_Bumblebee knew that Mikaela, Epps, and Lennox, like so many others, were not like them. There were subtle differences, like the way they changed alt-forms as casually as humans changed clothing whereas the Cybertronians tended to remain faithful to one form, just updating it every so often. Bumblebee himself had yet to alter his Camaro form, though he had upgraded it to the current year's model._

_However, despite all the differences, Bumblebee still thought of them as Autobots rather than human-turned-Autobots._

_He wondered if these new younglings—for even though they might have been adult in their old world, they were younglings in their new world—knew what the Autobots thought of them, and of what they meant to them...of the second chance that they sorely needed after eons and eons of endless fighting and death._

_He wondered if Ironhide would ever tell Lennox about the youngling that he had tried so hard to save back on Cybertron._

_He wondered if Blaster would ever tell Epps about the Cassette that he lost so many eons ago._

_He wondered if Ratchet would ever tell Mikaela a certain femme whose spark was poorly attached, and who had fluttered in and out of life so quickly, even by human standards._

_He wondered if he himself would ever tell them about how good it was to not be the last youngling anymore, to not be alone anymore._

_Bumblebee thought of them as Autobots rather than humans-turned-Autobots. He wondered if it was good or bad that their human origins were so easily forgotten._

**X x X**

Bumblebee leaned against the door frame of the weapons room, watching as his partner carefully took out personally-made weaponry and stowed them in subspace. The Ducati femme was slightly taller than an adult human male, and the Autobot insignia on her right shoulder stood grey and silver against the white patina.

She had come a long way…they had all come a long way. The Allspark's destruction had left both a gift and a curse for the Autobots' future. The blast of the Allspark's destruction radiated, effecting humans in a certain radius. The closer the human was, the faster the effects were.

Sparks had embedded in their bodies, burning the humans from the inside out. The Autobots had to perform a drastic spark transplant in order to save their lives...at least, that was what the Autobots liked to think.

All in all, twenty-six human-turned-Autobots were added to their ranks. Twenty-six lives changed, twenty-six humans-no-longer-humans. Twenty-six, not including the one human who they had been sure would have changed first; not including the one human who Bumblebee missed so badly that his energon ran cold in his wires.

"_So tell me again why Sam wasn't changed? He was under the Allspark at the time, wasn't he? Wouldn't he have gotten a full blast of it?"_

"_Yes, he was closest to the Allspark at the time. However, being in physical contact with the Allspark must have granted him some form of immunity."_

She didn't seem to notice his presence, though he had been standing there for a few minutes already. She took out a blaster as long as her arm, looking through the cross wires. He noticed that the weapon shook slightly.

"Are you ready?" he asked softly, trying not to surprise her.

"Huh?" she asked, sounding startled. She turned to look at him, her blue optics alternately glowing and dimming in distress. It was the New-bots' equivalent of blinking back tears, though the Cybertronian Autobots had no such expression. "Sorry, 'Bee, what did you say?"

"I asked if you were ready," he said kindly.

"Yeah, of course I'm ready 'Bee," she said, looking once again through the scope of her weapon. It was steady this time, though Bumblebee wasn't fooled.

"You don't have to do this, you know," Bumblebee said, as he had said at least five times in that day alone. "Arcee offered—"

"Arcee doesn't know him," she said shortly. "They all don't know him. I do. I'll be able to find him, and we'll get out before anyone notices a thing."

"Mikaela—"

"Bumblebee, I'm ready. Stop treating me like a kid," she snapped, her optics glowing fiercely. "Nothing's gonna happen."

_Things happen, though, _Bumblebee thought sadly. _And you are a kid, you are a youngling—in many ways, all of you guys are._

If Bumblebee had the physiology to heave a sigh, he would have. "Well, you know the plan, right?"

"Yeah," she said, storing weapons in her subspace almost compulsively. He walked calmly over to where she was, and stopped her. She looked up at him, and gave a small nod. "Starscream and the other Seekers are, right now, busy raiding a nuclear plant. Optimus and company are going over to stop him. While the 'cons are busy trying to fend them off, we'll go in and grab him right under Soundwave's…er…nose, or whatever it is he has."

Bumblebee looked at her. "You make it sound so easy," he remarked wryly.

"That's 'cuz it is," she answered cheekily. She looked him up and down, and said, "Gear up, partner. I don't want to have to wait for you."

Shaking his head, Bumblebee did as he was bid. Their positions were switched now—he was gearing up, and she was waiting at the doorframe.

"I hope Sunny gets a scratch," she remarked, seemingly out of the blue. "Sideswipe too, for good measure."

Bumblebee's optics widened. "So bitter, Mikaela?" he asked lightly. "What if I told you that Sides has a good-sized crush on you?"

She scrutinized him for a moment, and then threw her head back for a quick laugh. "Good try, Bumblebee. I happen to know that Sides loves only two things—his reflection, and just maybe his brother. And even if he did, I still hope he gets a scratch."

"They didn't know Sam before," Bumblebee told her, sobering suddenly. "To them, he's just another enemy. That's why they talk like that."

Mikaela gave a careless shrug, and Bumblebee knew that she wasn't moved. Though he wasn't going to admit it, Bumblebee wasn't, either, though he did know the rationale behind the twins' feelings, as well those of many other Autobots. The things that they threatened to do to the technopath, the puppeteer, Soundwave's little protégé…sometimes Bumblebee just wanted to smash their heads into the table of the rec room, or at least switch their car wax with some sort of adhesive.

The twins knew him as another Decepticon. Red Alert knew him as the traitorous squishy that let Ravage escape. Prowl knew him as a strategic hindrance, as well as a potential threat.

They didn't know Sam; they only knew Sonar.

But despite all the hostility, despite all the questions and confusion and misunderstanding, Bumblebee was determined to bring Sam back to the Autobots.

"Ready, 'Bee?" Mikaela asked, pulling Bumblebee from his musings.

Bumblebee put on his battle mask. "Ready."

**X x X **

_No one really knew nor cared where Soundwave got the raw materials for his projects. Megatron might have asked once, and would surely have gotten an answer, but generally, no one was curious enough or indeed crazy enough to ask, "Where in the Pit did you get that ugly thing?"_

_So it was when Soundwave appeared with a new little glitch. His initial landing on the mud ball planet had happened three orns before, and he certainly did not have that barnacle with him at that time. Still, no one enquired where the thing came from. Starscream was no exception, but that was only because he knew where Soundwave got his new bundle of metal._

_The new Decepticon leader knew that it wasn't a coincidence that Soundwave's initial landing and subsequent disappearance for three orns just happened to occur about the same time a certain squishy disappeared from the very heart of the Autobot base. _

_And, three orns later, out came Soundwave with a new project. _

_Starscream let things be, however. Because really, what greater reward to give the one who had essentially handed him the throne of Decepticon leader but to take the little glitch under his wing? _

_And who knew? Maybe the fragger would one day become a great 'Bot assassin or hacker or general doom-bringer like the Cassettes before him. Maybe one day he'd kill the little insect who once served as his guardian. Maybe one day his guardian would kill him. The possibilities were endless, and each and every one as delicious as the last. _

_Starscream decided, long ago, that the universe was a stage, with a cast of fools in a play designed only for his amusement. And, really, Starscream was a fan of dramatic irony._

**X x X**

Ravage was roaming through the corridors of the Decepticon base, and passed by the cantina, when something interesting made her double back. There was a cluster of New-con younglings on the cantina floor—not an unusual occurrence, as they would often form a circle around two fighting mechs in order to egg them on and root for one side or another—but a free show was not what they were looking at.

Ravage gave a careless glance around the room. Sonar's ten Raven drones seemed to have spectacularly crashed out of the air. They lay scattered around the room, puppets whose strings had been suddenly cut.

"Is he okay?"

"What happened?"

"I dunno. He just collapsed and went into stand-by just like _that._"

"Stand-by? I thought he was in stasis."

"No, you scrapheap! If he were in stasis, he wouldn't be moving, now would he?"

"Did you see the Ravens? They all just crashed."

"Guys, mute it! He's onlining."

Ravage pushed past them, and the New-con younglings scattered as she growled. Sonar was lying on the ground, crumpled on his side, one of his arms coming up weakly. Ravage walked over, and stood over him, looking down at his black helmet with her four crimson optics.

His hand stretched out to the side, palm facing upward. Sonar mumbled some human language, a remnant of some of his previous programming. Ravage made a mental note to tell their creator about the residue later. Soundwave hated glitches in any of his creations. Then Sonar's head turned to face her, and he shifted so that he was lying on his back, and he immediately switched to Cybertronian.

"Do you hear the screams?" he asked faintly, the Cybertonian words coming out with a butchered quality because of the human vocal processors. His split-voice, at once female and male, emanated clearly from the mask. "They cry for battle." Around the room, his fallen drones quivered.

"Cut it out, little glitch," she told him flatly, and the drones stilled as his arm fell down feebly beside him. She bent down to nudge him to an upright sitting position. He still seemed disoriented, so she took an armoured shoulder with her jaws and dragged him a distance so that he could lean against the leg of a table.

A shadow loomed over the cluster of muttering New-cons, Ravage, and the still confused Sonar, and all but the latter looked up, their red optics meeting Soundwave's visors. He looked at them, and the other New-cons, satisfied that Sonar was online, drifted away.

Soundwave bent down to retrieve his limp creation before sitting down at a nearby table. Sonar, unresisting, settled in the crook of the mech's arm. Ravage leaped upon the table, watching with optics half-shuttered as Soundwave gave him an energon cube.

Sonar lifted his mask slightly, revealing the lower half of his implant-lined organic face. He sipped at the energon, coughed harshly as the life-sustaining liquid burned his lips and throat, and sipped again.

"All of it," Soundwave ordered, when it looked like Sonar was not going to drink anymore.

He did as he was bid, nearly chocking as he finished. Ravage rose a little on her haunches, but Soundwave was already running a finger down his creation's throat and chest, making the liquid go down easier.

"Who is screaming?" he asked, after a few breems of silence.

Soundwave did not react, but Ravage indulged his question, her head tilting to one side in a position where her audio receptors could best pick up any sound waves.

"No one is," she told him.

Soundwave lifted Sonar's mask, fully revealing his face. He grunted as the glaring white lights overhead reached his infrared-accustomed eyes, and raised a hand, as if in protest, but at Ravage's low growl thought the better of it, and put his arm back down. Soundwave took his chin in between a thumb and a forefinger, looking carefully into one eye and then into the other.

"Visual processors: hazy. Drug utilization: suspected," he proclaimed, releasing his face.

Sonar put his mask back down, flustered, and Ravage smirked from where she was sitting. "I do not do drugs," he said indignantly.

Another silence, and Ravage could feel through her bond with Soundwave that he was searching through Sonar's frequencies to make sure that he wasn't under the influence. "Statement accepted. Recharge and recover," he ordered. Sonar sat up, displeased, and was pushed back down by Soundwave's hand.

"If you recharge now, you may join the others later for practice," Ravage said, and they both looked up to Soundwave for approval. He regarded both his creations—his oldest and his youngest—silently, before giving a small nod. Sonar leaned back down, shifting to a more comfortable position, cheek leaning against Soundwave's spark casing. Ravage watched as the form quieted and then stilled.

Ravage curled up slightly, and Soundwave transferred his creation over to her care. She nuzzled him until he had settled next to her, one hand coming up to grasp one of her shoulders. She looked up to Soundwave, who nodded once before leaving. She settled down too, feeling her spark pulse come into rhythm with the heartbeat of the being beside her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **don't own Transformers.

* * *

Becoming

**2**

_The spark transplants were all successful. Stories were made up to cover this from the general populace—fake deaths, accidents, cutting family ties, and whatever it was the government could come up with. The cover-up, however, was the last thing on the Autobots' minds concerning their new arrivals. _

_Ironhide knew that it wasn't easy for any of the humans to adjust to their new bodies and their new lives. It would have been hard anyway, considering that all they thought they knew about the universe was half-true at best, but then they were forced to leave their families and their loved ones behind. _

_But for all that they lost, the Autobots were determined to return it to them tenfold._

_There were problems, though…_

_Ironhide thought that people Mikaela's age and younger had a better time of it—they were more resilient to these kinds of things. But, for the majority…It was so hard, sometimes, to treat them as the adults that they were rather than the younglings they were now. Their frequencies still felt so...so __**young. **__Forget younglings, they still felt like the frequencies of a sparkling._

_The human-turned-Autobots tolerated their constant coddling and hovering well enough, but sometimes it got just a bit too much._

"_Aw, hello little guy, what's your name?" asked Sideswipe in that baby voice he adopted whenever talking to a sparkling or youngling. It was too bad that he was amongst the group of Autobots just recently arrived, and had skipped out on the briefing about their new arrivals. It was also too bad that he caught Will on a bad day._

_Strange that everyone __**except **__Sideswipe could see the storm cloud gathering around the small Lexus ES._

"_Excuse me? What did you just say?" he demanded, sounding very indignant. Though his body and frequency were those of a sparkling, his voice—and grammar—certainly wasn't._

"_Uh, I—" Sideswipe spluttered. Ironhide laughed. A grown mech, told off by a youngling! It was so precious._

"_My name's Will," his partner continued evenly. "Please don't talk to me—or __**anyone**__—in that tone again. It's demeaning, and it'll make people angry."_

"_Uh…sure," Sideswipe said, bemused, as Will walked away._

"_Precocious little thing, isn't he?" Sideswipe remarked to Ironhide as soon as Will was out of hearing range._

"_That youngling's older than he looks," Ironhide replied. Ironhide would think later that he would probably not make so many mistakes regarding Will and the others, if only he could practice what he preached._

**X x X**

The Autobot shooting range was strangely empty, save for a lone figure, shooting at moving targets. The ground underneath him trembled a little, and he looked at his canon, perplexed. He didn't accidentally rig the thing to back-up again, did he? Ironhide _still _laughed about it, though all he had to do was point out the instance where Ratchet modified Ironhide's blasters so that they would squirt out a pathetic amount of water for the weapons specialist to sober…

The trembling got a little more violent now, and Will knew that Ironhide knew that he and Rob had volunteered to go. He braced himself for the cold front.

Sure enough, Ironhide rumbled into the shooting range, and strode right up to the significantly smaller mech. Will pretended not to notice him, instead firing off another round.

"Will," Ironhide said shortly. "Didn't I say that you can't go on this mission?"

"Well, yeah," Will said, shrugging, and slapping away the little voice inside him that was begging for Ironhide's forgiveness. "But there are more forces there than originally thought, and since we're stretched out already…well, every able-bodied person, right?"

"But—"

"Optimus trusts us," Will said calmly, recharging his weapon and aiming at another target. Ironhide shoved the cannon down, and Will reluctantly looked up at his guardian.

"This isn't a game, Will," Ironhide said, frustrated. "Do you know what they'd do if they caught you? You're still—you're still a youngling! Still reprogrammable! They'll shove you into stasis, wipe away all your memories, take apart your body—they'll kill you without killing you! If you're lucky, they'll do it in that order! Scrap, Will! How many times—"

"And you think I don't know that?" Will burst out, his optics very bright. "Dammit, 'Hide! Yes, I'm scared, yes I'm young compared to you guys, but there are some things you have to do! I have fought against these guys before. I know what they're capable of! I know how to take care of myself, and I don't need any coddling."

There was a pause as both of them calmed down.

"'Hide, it's okay. I know you want what's best, but despite all appearances, I'm not…I'm not a _youngling. _I was a grown man when this happened," he said, gesturing to his relatively new body. "An adult, a soldier, a…"

The words _father _and _husband _hung in the air, threatening to crash down on both of them.

"Come on, then," Ironhide said decisively. "The others are waiting for us." He led the way, and Will, after a pause, followed.

Even though the weapons specialist was as stoic and brash as ever, Will knew that he was a little bit hurt, and he was ashamed of himself.

But he couldn't help it. The Autobot in him wanted to live, but Will could not and would not let the human die.

**X x X**

"_Let go of me, you freak!" The human voice rang clearly through Soundwave's quarters, and the Cassettes who were reclining there—Ravage, Frenzy, and Ratbat—glanced at one another in mild surprise._

_Soundwave came into the room a nanoclick later, something clamped in his hand trying to squirm free. _

"_What d'ya have, what d'ya have, lemme see!" Ratbat whined, bouncing up and down slightly from where he sat._

_Ravage could see the internal battle going on inside Soundwave—on one hand, he wanted to get to his project as soon as possible, but on the other hand, Ratbat would whine for __**orns **__if he didn't catch a glimpse of the raw materials._

_So Soundwave put his hand down next to Ratbat, and the three Cassettes saw what Soundwave was holding._

"_OOOoohh, hello again, little insect," Frenzy cackled._

"_Not you again," the human said, glaring, and swiping at an inquisitive Ratbat's prodding claw. "Next time I'll kick your head into a sewage system." Then it gasped as Soundwave's grip tightened and it was lifted in the air again._

"_Bye-bye," Frenzy and Ratbat said, waving cheerfully as Soundwave took the squishy into the next room—his workroom. Ravage just watched with amusement._

_The next three orns were very interesting. The lights flickered dangerously, sometimes going out completely, and Rumble's computer even fried—without Ratbat's assistance. They didn't see Soundwave for the next three orns, either, or the squishy, even though they did occasionally hear it. _

_After three orns of a combination of Ratbat and Lazerbeak's whining and Rumble and Frenzy's scratching at the door, Soundwave finally came out, something in his slightly curved hand._

_He lowered his arm to show them. Someone was curled up in his hand, awakening slightly when Soundwave's thumb came to rest at his shoulder. He got up, confused and agitated, looking around, until he saw that Soundwave was right there, and he relaxed enough to let the Cassettes have a good look at him. Decepticon armour, weaker than theirs but superior to that of drones, covered all but his head. On his face they could see metallic implants that lined the organic flesh and extended throughout his body, hidden by the armour. He looked at them; they looked at him._

_When Ratbat moved to poke him out of curiosity, his human-looking face made a grimace and he backed away from them as far as Soundwave's hand would allow. They all smirked. All of them near the beginning of their lives had found themselves in the same position._

_None of them really could tell, but they got the feeling that Soundwave was vaguely amused. But then his new creation made a small distressed sound, clutching his head, and Soundwave's fingers curled around the small body before he fell off. _

"_Virus: still present. Memory purge: incomplete," Soundwave mused, and then took the now-struggling form back into the workroom._

_After the initial glance, Ratbat and Lazerbeak got bored with their new addition, and Frenzy and Rumble were just waiting until the virus was knocked out and their new sibling got a smidge more interesting. _

_Ravage, however, was slightly sympathetic. After all, hadn't she once been the same? Trapped amongst the memories of an Autobot youngling who refused to let her live?_

_So when the virus reared up for the umpteenth time and the squishy's memories came back, causing the already confused technopath to try and run away from them again, Ravage chased him down and didn't bite down as hard as she should have had._

**X x X**

_What am I doing here? _

That was the first thought that came to his head upon wakening, and it troubled him. Usually, the first thought in his head was: _Where am I this time? _He knew very well what he was doing here. He wasn't with Soundwave anymore, but that was to be expected. He rarely woke up in the same place where he had fallen asleep.

_What am I doing here? _

Soundwave had duties to fulfill and missions to complete, so he would often be left to complete his recharge with one of his siblings. If not, then he'd be left with another Decepticon, usually Barricade but occasionally even Lord Starscream.

_What am I doing here?_

Even if he managed to reach a recharge berth before he passed out, he would wake up and find himself somewhere else, usually being held by Soundwave as the mech worked on some other project or reviewed some data pads, or lying next to Ravage, or stuck between Frenzy and Rumble, or tangled in the wings of Lazerbeak and Ratbat.

_What am I doing here?_

Plus, to Frenzy's endless amusement, he was sort of the unofficial 'security blanket' or something of the New-cons, which explained how he was in his current position.

He was lying in someone's arms again. Without opening his eyes, he could tell that the being holding him was Stockade, who transformed into an Escalade. He was resting on one arm, and the hand of the opposite arm covered him, fingers and palm blanketing him.

It was usually Stockade, as he was the biggest and for now the strongest. If not, then Blitz, the vending-machine 'Con—somewhere towards his right—would be the one to snatch him out of reach of the other New-cons.

All the New-cons were recharging now, and he was once again playing the undignified role of comfort toy. He reached out, hooking onto the frequencies of his drones. The twelve other New-cons were cuddling up with the Ravens, the four tiny Nokiacons (Eeny, Meeny, Miney, and Mo) sharing one. He also sensed Ravage's presence somewhere behind Stockade, to their left.

Everything was normal. He didn't know how many times he had woken up to a similar if not the same situation.

So he didn't understand—

_What am I doing here? _

—a strange feeling of wrongness, as if he was supposed to be somewhere else. As if he forgot something very important.

In his mind, Soundwave's firewalls reacted and shifted to his stretching frequencies, gathering them up and enclosing them before they wandered too far. He pushed slightly against those firewalls—not trying to break through them, but as a gesture of a need for attention—and they pushed back gently. He relaxed, taking comfort in those solid walls that protected him from the incessant whispers of Out There.

The wrongness dimmed now, becoming no more than a queer feeling.

A savage snarl sounded from behind him, and he knew that Ravage had awakened. She probably thought that he had run off again, and because of his latest collapse (which he recalled in shame) she probably thought that he contracted another virus or something. "Over here," he called out, waving a hand in the air feebly and gasping as Stockade tightened his grip in response to his movement.

Ravage stalked over, and her displeased expression lifted marginally as she viewed the sight before her.

"Oh sure, laugh it up," he said caustically, lifting his head a little so that she was no longer sideways in his view screens.

"Well, this is rather amusing," she said, glancing at the New-con cluster. "Playing battered toy-drone again, are you?"

"Playing, no. Abducted into it, yes," he said, tugging at Stockade's fingers half-heartedly, knowing it was futile to try and squirm out.

She merely chuckled at this, and settled down in front of him. However, he noticed that her optics were bright, and her gears were still tense—she looked ready for a chase.

"I didn't run this time, you know," he said, flopping down in defeat. "Come to think of it, I don't know why I kept running…"

"Yes…well, you're a glitch-ridden little 'con," she said. "Can't be too careful. But at least you've gotten past needing youngling restraints." She chuckled then. "It was quite cute though—you looked so glum, chained to Soundwave all the time, and he'd just be typing away. Brings back good memories of Frenzy and Rumble."

He laughed at the mental image, and gasped again as Stockade's grip tightened. Ravage had the mercy to wait until his captor/bed relaxed a little before furthering the conversation. In that pause, he noticed that—

_What am I doing here? _

—that the queer feeling wasn't gone.

Maybe the feeling was because of what Stockade said to him the other orn. Even though the other New-cons gasped at the depth of the insult, he himself didn't really feel anything. But maybe he was stung by the remark, if only subconsciously.

"Ravage?"

"Yes?"

"Am I human?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

* * *

Becoming

**3**

_The New-bots weren't always allowed in the briefing room—well, they weren't always __**invited, **__which was close enough to not being allowed in—so Mikaela had been understandably puzzled when she was called down there. _

_Her confusion cleared up the instant that she stepped foot in the room. All the senior officers were there, looking at her as a parent would look at a naïve child who didn't understand what she did wrong._

_This was an intervention._

_Where they had failed in disguised jokes, veiled hints, and direct one-to-one conversations, they were attempting to do in number._

"_Mikaela," Optimus started. "We're here to talk to you about your interest in—"_

"_In Sam?" she challenged, and she caught the Autobots in the room give each other a wary glance._

"_In a certain addition to the Decepticon ranks."_

"_What, you can't say his name now?" _

_But the others continued as though she hadn't said anything. _

"_Mikaela," Red Alert said now, and she could tell that he was bursting at the seams with accusations but was fighting to remain calm—no need of a repetition of a certain incident. "You must understand that it is dangerous for you, to have such connections, such sentimental feelings, to the enemy. An enemy who has proven himself to be potentially dangerous in the future, given the prison break that he instigated just a few weeks ago."_

"_I can't believe this," she muttered. __Her gaze skittered around the room, coming to a rest upon the Autobot leader. "Optimus, how can you agree with this?" she demanded, voice slightly touching upon the hysterical level._

_Optimus was seated at the table, hands clasped together, with the look of someone who was tired but who still had to go on, no matter what. If she had been calm enough, she would have been able to see that this pained him as much as it pained her, but through her haze of anger she could only see the betrayal—betrayal of Sam and of herself._

_Optimus did not say anything—perhaps he could not say anything—so Prowl attempted to talk some sense into her._

"_Reprogramming is as constant in our world as war is," Prowl said, and she decided that she hated him __today. "When mechs become reprogrammed, they lose all their sense of their former self. They become an entirely new person, somewhat akin to a heart being transplanted into a new body. Humans believe in the concept of nature and nurture. With reprogramming, one's very own nature is changed, and with the purging of memories, the effects of one's nurture are gone completely. It would be better for us all—and especially for you—if we come to terms with the fact that Samuel is no longer, and that—"_

"_And did you give up so easily when the 'Cons got their hands on Barricade?"_

_If they had been human, there would have been a horrified, collective intake of breath. But as it was, t__he whole room was silent, the only sounds being the quiet hum of their internal workings. Prowl didn't even shutter an optic. He just looked at Mikaela emotionlessly._

_She felt terrible, but satisfaction won over guilt__, and she turned around and walked out of the room. _

Unlike popular human, and even popular Cybertronian, belief, technopathy was not a gift that one was born with, ready to use and all powerful. Nor was it a gift that came to light with the onset of "puberty" or whatever it was that the Autobots had as an equivalent. Like with all other skills – healing, sharpshooting, hand-to-hand combat – everyone was born with some degree of proficiency in technopathy. Their comm. links were living proof of this. But, like with all other skills, some had more talent than others. And if one wished to foster that talent, one must _practice, practice, practice. _Time and discipline were needed to make a good leader, a good medic, a good warrior…and a good technopath.

Blaster had noticed that Mikaela had promise, though she seemed keener on becoming a medic rather than a technopath. Should she show interest in such a discipline, though, he would gladly take her under his proverbial wing. The Autobots could always use another technopath against Soundwave's constant attacks, especially now that Sam – well, especially now. Blaster hadn't realized the extent of Soundwave's training – indeed, he hadn't realized that the human was still _alive _after all that time – and they had paid for it, and Ravage had gone free.

When Soundwave had made planet-fall, Blaster's presence had become a necessity to ward off the enemy technopath's hacks into the Autobot base, espionage from the inside of their very own processors. To be sure, each Autobot constantly maintained his firewalls, and the base had an external one in place…but you'd never know when cracks would show. And both Blaster and Soundwave watched each other closely, looking for the cracks in the armour.

Blaster was, strangely, in one of the labs, upbeat music playing softly in the background. His cassettes were off somewhere, no doubt making trouble. He touched lightly upon their frequencies, and was answered with an "all is well" message. In his hands, he worked patiently with a tiny object, whose circumference would have been no wider than that of the tip of his smallest finger.

He was one of the rare newcomers who, though not having known Sam personally, did not hate the newly-made "Decepticon," and fully supported what many other Autobots thought of as a pointless crusade. To the mechs who shook their heads at him and his "it's the right thing to do" attitude, all he had to do was to point out that he'd much rather have Sam on their side than on the 'Cons.

When he was finished, he would give this to Mikaela and Bumblebee. Theoretically, it would protect Sam from Soundwave's own frequencies, acting as an artificial firewall for him until Mikaela and Bumblebee could get the boy out of the Decepticon hotspot and into an area where Blaster could start covering for him.

Though Sam showed talent in a level of technopathy that many technopaths would work their entire lives to even touch, that of manipulating drones and insentient machines with frequencies only, he frankly sucked at other areas, including telepathic communication, one of the most basic skills, and his firewalls were immensely weak. So weak, in fact, that Blaster was beginning to doubt that any such protection existed. Until he learned to build up his own firewalls—an innate talent in other beings—Sam would be dependent upon another technopath to shield him, not only from invading frequencies, but also from insanity. You tended to go insane when you couldn't shut others' passing thoughts out.

Bumblebee and Mikaela would do anything to get their friend back. He had known that the duo would go off on this semi-unauthorized mission, but had not known that it would be so soon, otherwise this thing would have already been built, tested, and perfected. But he would deal with what he got. He always did.

**X x X**

_Barricade watched his monitors, occasionally reaching out to adjust the dials with one hand, and in the other arm he precariously held his charge._

_The thing was recharging again. It had been doing that for the majority of its stay. Reprogramming would usually take this course, as all the old programming was deleted, and what couldn't be deleted locked in a permanent stasis, a virus vault, and a new program manifested itself._

_The fact that it would be months now since the initial extraction did not bother Barricade in the least; it was all due to the shoddy raw materials, after all._

_Barricade knew that he was among the very few mechs who felt something that didn't resemble humour when Soundwave showed up with his latest addition.__ He felt strongly about what Soundwave had done, but whether it was revulsion at the fact that a human had been used as raw materials (humans did not deserve such an honour) or exasperation that he'd have to babysit again, he did not know._

_Like all the other times, all the other (rather suicidal) mechs would make snarky comments about how Soundwave "couldn't keep it in his spark chamber," whisperings that were usually killed off (sometimes in the literal sense). But Barricade knew. That squishy had been his target for the better part of his time on this sorry excuse for a planet. How could he not know?_

_Plus, there was the added feature of their common beginnings, a history that he shared with other mechs on the base, and in particular with Ravage. He had assisted Soundwave through her virus cleanse, and perhaps it was his experience with Ravage's trying vorns that he recognized what had happened and that he was again asked to watch the newest experiment._

_Soundwave had recon missions and other duties, and whenever he had to take his team with him__ and Barricade was at leisure, Barricade would be left to watch the thing, as was this instance._

_What humans termed as parental leave were hard to come by __as the war progressed—understandable, since the absence of the Cube meant that there were no new sparks being made. Reprogramming became commonplace as a way for one side to keep up their numbers by stealing sparks from the other. When pushed, even Autobots would not hesitate to perform such an act. _

_The fact that only younglings were susceptible to having their firewalls overridden to such an extent to perform reprogramming did not deter either side in the least._

_A way of living that kind of enforced Barricade's opinion that either the Decepticons would win, or that both sides would decimate each other's numbers so badly that they would both die._

_He was optimistic like that._

_But anyway, he agreed to act as a sitter, if only to gauge the usefulness (or lack thereof) of their new addition. _

_It didn't look promising at first. The shell that Soundwave had been forced to work with was weak to begin with (you couldn't do much when your raw material was an organic whelp)._

_He'd almost figured Soundwave fried in the processor for making something so useless when a rather…interesting trait manifested itself._

_So he kept the youngling around. _

_Plus, he did find that the newly-improved insect was marginally tolerable than the other little glitches that he usually got stuck with, and that already put him under the 'do not squish' category._

"Am I human?"

He regretted asking the question as soon as it left him. Ravage's four optics narrowed, and he instinctively shrank back into Stockade's arms.

"Of course not. Who told you such a thing?" she hissed.

"No one. Not really. It was just…just in passing. Because I'm smaller than everyone else, besides the Nokiacons, but they shouldn't really count because—"

She gave a short laugh, and he stopped in his rambles. "You are a terrible liar," she said, sounding amused. "But at least you're trying."

He allowed himself to relax a little. "So…that's a no, then?"

"The humans are squishy and useless. Good for sport though, and I'll show you one day how amusing it could be. You, though having more glitches than the rest of the New-cons put together, are none of the above." She settled down, optics half-closing lazily. "No, you are Decepticon, through and through."

They lapsed into silence, but the nagging feeling wouldn't let go of him. It was a strange, urgent feeling, the kind of feeling that you'd get walking through a dark corridor and all of a sudden you sense someone behind you, something waiting to grab you.

He hooked onto his drones as a source of comfort, touched lightly upon the frequencies of the sleeping New-cons, and resisted the instinctive, immature urge to reach out for Soundwave.

Not that he could shield his thoughts from the master technopath, and as proof of that point, Soundwave's frequencies gave a comforting pulse, and the firewalls rose a little higher. He blushed—scrappit, he was old enough to not have to cling to his creator all the time!—but allowed his own frequencies to be soothed.

"We'll always be together, won't we?" he asked Ravage.

"You are full of strange questions today."

"Will you answer them?"

She regarded him carefully, as though seeing him for the first time, and he knew that she was debating whether or not to tell him the truth.

"You are not a cassette, you know," she finally said. "Our bond to Soundwave is quite different from yours. We and Soundwave are one, but you are an entirely separate entity. One day when you are grown and your abilities have matured, you may still be here, by our side, but you are more likely to be separated from us to serve in another part of the Decepticon empire. Technopaths are in short supply, and those who are well-practiced in the art are often traitors."

She spat out that last word in contempt, and he knew that she was thinking about a certain mech that they weren't supposed to talk about.

He tilted his head in an improvised, morose nod. He had known the answer, but he had wanted this to last a little longer…

"But," Ravage said, and he looked up. "Though you are a glitch, you are _our _glitch. And for as long as you live, you'll always be ours. Now recharge," she added. "You will need it to keep up with the others."

He settled more comfortably in Stockade's arms under her watchful gaze. He knew that as long as Soundwave or his co-creations were around, nothing, not even an Autobot, would be able to get him.

He fell asleep easily.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

**Author ****note: **I am aware that I am missing a lot of Soundwave's cassettes…however…in this 'verse, he has Ravage, Rumble, Frenzy, Lazerbeak, and Ratbat. Plus, I can only ever remember those five, he has so damn many. Honestly, how do they all fit in there?! Also, the quickness of this update? I blame the Optimus angst.

**Also****: **Flashbacks and events occurring are pointed out in bold below. I think it's easier to read rather than large chunks of italicized text, especially since the flashbacks are so darn long in this chapter, and the present events really, _really _short…

* * *

Becoming

**4**

**Past**

The Autobots had known that the Decepticons had somehow gained a new weapon. New-cons, the escaped Decepticons that Sector Seven made, gathered at the Decepticon base quickly, too quickly for the Autobots to save them. Something was calling them there, and unlike Starscream's constant orders or Optimus' broadcasted pleas, it was something that they obeyed without question.

They had not known the nature of this new tool. How could they have known?

The death of Samuel James Witwicky, detailed to them by a monotonous, emotionless Soundwave, (which they had later found out to be mostly a deception) had affected the leader much more than he let on. Sam was not just a human ally, he was…was a friend. And though he mourned for the boy too, he allowed himself to feel much more for Mikaela and Bumblebee than he allowed himself to feel for himself.

Though neither a Cybertronian nor a New-bot, Sam was Mikaela's bonded, and was Bumblebee's spark-brother. The latter had been near catatonic after what Soundwave revealed to them, and the former consumed with bloody rage. All three beings had been painfully aware of Sam's human lifespan, a butterfly's season in comparison to Bumblebee's and now Mikaela's lifespan. It had been the cruelest thing in the world that even that short time was taken away from them.

But they had all had to move on, and as the years passed and as one battle blurred with the next, Bumblebee and Mikaela had started to get better. Optimistic mechs said, in unintended callousness, that perhaps they would find peace in each other. But Optimus knew better. Bumblebee and Mikaela were spark-siblings, and would not be anything different. Could not be. But it was good, after watching both spiral down so far and so quickly, to see them smile again.

Needless to say, the incident, where they found out that Sam was not only _alive _but was now on the opposing side, had been a terrible shock, a strange combination of both grief and joy.

It had been a few orns since the incident which would be remembered later by the majority of the mechs as the incident where Ravage escaped, and by a small, shocked minority as the sighting of a dear, dead companion. Mikaela and Bumblebee had isolated themselves in their respective quarters ever since their return to the Autobot base, coming out only to refuel, and even that activity they did with vague disinterest.

Blaster was already in Optimus' office, ready with his report. He saluted his commander, and Optimus nodded in reply. "Did you make contact?" he asked.

Blaster shook his head. "No. Soundwave's firewalls are incredibly enforced around him. I don't risk going any farther, or else Soundwave will figure out what I'm up to and then there'll be no chance of getting contact at all."

"What has he become capable of?"

"Some basics of technopathy, but what worries me is that, as he has already shown, he has become rather efficient in puppetry," Blaster said grimly, and Optimus felt a tremor go up his armour, remembering the finer details of Ravage's escape, how their circuitry went haywire, how the very base seemed to come alive…It was lucky that Blaster pinpointed the source of the puppetry, and was able to shield the base, but not soon enough to keep Ravage from escaping in the mayhem.

"What is Sam to him?" he asked after a pause. "What was the purpose?" Almost every mech on the Autobot side had a rivalry…had an insight with his counterpart on the Decepticon side. As Optimus knew Megatron, Blaster knew Soundwave. "Was it revenge for Megatron?"

"No. Whatever Soundwave does, he has a purpose. He doesn't do things merely for revenge or hatred, although those are added bonuses. He thinks it beneath him. If taking Sam and…converting him was not significantly useful and was merely for sport or amusement, he would not have done it. It would have been time-consuming and a waste of precious resources. Sam is useful; able to contact the New-cons, able to perform puppetry…to Soundwave, Sam is a precious tool, nothing more, nothing less."

"How has this become possible?" Optimus asked. "Ratchet performed numerous tests—all indicated that Sam was immune from the Allspark's radiation."

"I can't tell you, boss-mech," Blaster answered. "My guess? Contact with the Allspark at the time of its destruction _did_give him immunity, but he was also indirectly in contact with Megatron's spark at the time, and the spark-energy must have transferred with the Allspark acting as a conduit."

"So I suppose that is why…?"

"Why he's a living beacon for the rest of the 'Cons that Sector Seven made? Why he has those abilities? My guess would be yes. But why he looks so…so strange? That is Soundwave's doing."

Blaster shook his head, and Optimus was suddenly struck by how much the mech had changed. Though still headstrong and cheerful at times, Blaster nevertheless gained sadness over the vorns—pressure, perhaps, from constantly fighting off his own co-creation, and the haunting death of one of his creations had taken its toll. Optimus could sympathize with both counts.

"I suppose that," Blaster continued, "if you look at it a certain, creepy way, Sam is the creation of Megatron, and all those New-cons are the co-creations. All the technology on earth _was _reverse-engineered from King 'Con."

"Did Soundwave think of him that way?"

"Maybe. It would have encouraged him to do what he did. If he thought that we had Megatron's creation…yes, he'd go to any lengths to reclaim him, and to…cleanse him of any of our influences."

"Then he has been reprogrammed."

"It would appear so…although I'm not sure if it works the same for organics, and even though it looks like its been pummeled and put through who knows what, Sam's body is still his own, unlike—"

Blaster didn't finish the sentence. Optimus looked outside the base window, watching as some of the New-bots trained with Hound.

"But caution must be taken…and we will have to treat him as any other reprogrammed comrade," Optimus said softly, so softly that you could barely hear the tiredness, the reluctance…and the regret.

**Present**

The Autobots plowed through the snow, going to stop the Decepticons from completely decimating yet another power plant. Snow fell softly around them, soft and white against the slate grey skies.

Optimus watched his troops carefully, and especially the newest additions. Of those who had accompanied them, he could see only two clearly. The others were too far behind, shielded from him by the rest of their hastily-called upon rescue force. Will, who was just behind him with Ironhide, and Epps with Jazz on his other side. Though their respective partners would look at them with grim determination, Optimus looked on with more than a little bit of sadness.

For mechs who had been created during the war, like Bumblebee, it never crossed their processors that the New-bots would not join their cause. To them, it was not only right, but natural for them to support their brothers-in-arms. The mechs couldn't be blamed; when one was sparked in such a world, one did not grow up questioning things like these.

But Optimus was an older mech; one who had had the privilege of knowing what peace actually looked like, what it felt like. Perhaps it was because of this that he knew that it was wrong. This was not their world; this was not their war, and yet they had been thrust into it without a choice.

He did have to admit that, in the grand scheme of things, many of the Autobots and indeed the entire human race had no choice either. Ironically, it was either war, or extinction. But even so, choosing to fight was a choice in and of itself. These New-bots didn't even have that. From the moment the Allspark had left its last legacy, the choices had been made for them.

If it was up to him, he would tell these newborns to flee. Flee from this carnage that enslaved their entire race. But where would they go? The last of the Neutrals were wiped out vorns ago, and as younglings, the New-bots were tempting victims for reprogramming, not only from Decepticons but also from the radical groups who dared to call themselves "Autobots." And it wasn't like they could go back to their human lives; they weren't human anymore. Not exactly. And they couldn't keep them in the Autobot base; the isolation would drive them insane.

Like them, Optimus had no choice either.

He was a leader, and in this strange new world these twenty-six lost, frightened souls looked to him as a father, though he would lead them down this dark road.

And that was his burden to bear.

**X x X**

**Past**

When Sonar was first activated, Soundwave had him restricted him to the Decepticon base. It was a precaution, of course, not only due to lapses in the reprogramming, but also simply due to his youth. Many things befell younglings during the early part of their first vorns – flawed programming, weak firewalls, etc. – so much so that when Cybertron had been at peace, the highest mortality rate had been among the newly sparked. Better that he be in friendly territory, where Soundwave or one of the cassettes could get to him quickly, should the need arise. But Sonar seemed to thrive well, despite the occasional, expected virus attacks that became few and far in between as time went on.

Soundwave had declared Sonar ready for outside combat the orn that Ravage was caught.

They had gone to recover her immediately, leaving Sonar behind, not realizing that, upon Soundwave's declaration, they had just given the young technopath permission to follow them…and not realizing that he did not understand that he shouldn't have had.

When Soundwave meant outside combat, he didn't mean a full-blown battle.

To his credit, Sonar was just a bit brighter than the average Decepticon youngling, and did not wade in the midst of the battle. Instead, he hung in the background, and used what training Soundwave had given him concerning puppetry to shut down the Autobot base's security precautions and to release Ravage. A couple of Autobots had found him, however, and Ravage would later tell them a curious thing – that upon knocking off Sonar's battle mask, one had hesitated with the final blow, and the other had frozen in place. Still, it was only because Ravage showed up in time to rescue the rescuer that Sonar was not captured or killed.

Preoccupied with battling the Autobots, and in particular the traitor, they did not meet back with either Ravage or Sonar until they were retreating to the Decepticon base.

Ravage looked no worse for wear, but Sonar was pale and listless, draped across her shoulders, and his frequencies felt worse.

He was not trained for such an extensive use of puppetry, and now the excessive use of power was taking its toll.

Sonar's frequencies were always a bit unreachable to them, able to convey and receive only emotion, not words, but even with that weakness, they could tell that something was wrong with his very processor. His frequencies behaved erratically, spiking into panic before quickly going into a catatonic state and then panicking again. When they tried reaching for him he forcefully pushed them away, his feeble firewalls rising, and the cassettes did not dare push farther lest they break him. Only Soundwave had the skill to keep a firm hold on his youngest creation's fragile mind, of his last shreds of sanity, grimly holding onto the thrashing frequencies that were as violent as hurt, cornered drones.

And then the _sounds. _Sonar would writhe and scream, fall into hysterical laughter, quickly dissolve into sobs, before going completely still and eerily quiet, mumbling in that ugly human language – one of the impending signs of that stubborn virus.

"Is Sonar going to deactivate?" Ratbat asked worriedly one orn. Frenzy promptly thwacked his sibling, dislodging him from his perch.

"Of course not! Don't be silly!" he snapped as Ratbat scrambled to his feet.

Soundwave had never lost a creation, at least during Frenzy's lifetime. There had been Obsidian, the quadruped cassette that had been Soundwave's first creation, killed during the early times of the war, and would have supposedly been Ravage's partner. But that was such a long time ago – even before Ravage's creation – so Frenzy usually didn't count her among their ranks.

They did not leave the technopath – they didn't even recharge – until Sonar was in the clear, and even after they were sure that Sonar was not going to deactivate, one of them would always be with him, watching just in case the virus took over his entire system. And there had been many close calls.

Sonar had been in stasis for a long time. So long, in fact, that the youngest cassettes thought that he might not wake up. But he did wake up, eventually, and Frenzy was there, so that he wasn't alone.

Frenzy's optics widened as the figure opened his eyes, battle mask removed and placed on the ground beside the berth. Sonar looked at him blankly, as if he didn't recognize him, and Frenzy felt his spark give a strange pulse.

Then Sonar blinked, and the look was gone. "Frenzy?" he asked slowly. He looked down at himself then, strapped down to the recharge berth so that he wouldn't hurt himself, and then looked back at Frenzy. "Did I do something wrong? Where's Soundwave? Is he angry?"

Frenzy clicked in relief, and placed a hand atop his brother's head. Sonar, while still confused, seemed comforted by the gesture, and his frequencies became less agitated. "Glad to see you back, glitch," Frenzy said fondly, and then contacted Soundwave.

All in all, it had been a rather bad time, save for Ravage's freedom, which they would have accomplished anyway _without _Sonar's deterioration. The experience had left Sonar severely weakened and somewhat disoriented, and it might be another full vorn before he completely recovered. Needless to say, his quarantine inside the Decepticon base had been prolonged until further notice.

**Present**

Soundwave and his co-creations were gone now, off to gather more energon and to fight the Autobots that would stop them. Usually, Sonar would be disappointed in being left behind, but now he had a training session to distract him.

He wasn't usually able to train with the others. Most were built for direct combat, some for repairs, and others for espionage, like himself, and their training sessions reflected this. However, there were times when all the New-cons were able to fight in a free-for-all.

A few more clicks, and the pre-programmed drones would be released. The New-cons were scattered around the base, weapons at the ready. Sonar did one final check of them, touching lightly upon the frequencies and confirming their locations, before placing on his halo. It was a small, metal object, and went around his head from temple to temple. Instantly he felt disoriented as his technopathy was limited to all but a certain radius. He staggered a bit, reoriented himself, and then adjusted his frequencies to these new boundaries.

It was a suppression of his abilities, but a necessary suppression. Physically weaker than many of the New-cons (even if he was at his optimal health), Sonar had only two things going for him: exceptional agility, and, of course, his drones. This limitation was reflective of a realistic scenario, in which his technopathy would be limited by a stronger enemy technopath.

The object of the training was simple; take out as many pre-programmed drone "Autobots" as you could without hitting your own comrades. The pre-programmed drones had their weapons set to drive one to a temporary stasis, and becoming locked in such a state meant either death or capture. The entire base was their training ground as they fought to the last mech standing.

A signal sounded, and he knew that the others were already on the hunt. He didn't hesitate before heading into the vents.

Above Barricade's quarters, he saw a silhouette around the corner, and a quick frequency check revealed it to be one of the pre-programmed drones. Sonar grinned underneath his mask, and around him his ten drones shifted from foot to foot, and then took to the air, sharp claws at the ready, reflecting his excited frequencies.

This was going to be fun.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

**Author note: **Sorry, short chapter this time around. Also, this should be the last of the "flashback" chapters…for awhile, at least (I hope).

* * *

Becoming

**5**

**Past**

Unlike most new mechs on the base who were more or less indifferent merely through ignorance, Prowl actually did respect Samuel James Witwicky. He knew what he had meant to the original mechs who had made planet-fall, and he knew what he meant to the New-bots. More importantly, though, he respected him as the heroic human he had been.

It was a respect that he held even after this "Sonar" had been sighted, and that respect made Prowl even more adamant in his argument. Sonar was not Sam. To say otherwise would be to sully his memory.

It had been a few orns since the new Decepticon's sighting, and things were just getting worse.

Mikaela and Bumblebee had been coming out of their quarters again, which would have been a good sign, except that Mikaela had been getting persistent about "Sam's" rescue, and now had Bumblebee asking with her—Bumblebee, who knew very well what reprogramming did to a mech, but who had apparently lost himself to his desperation.

To make matters worse, though Optimus did not heed to their request, neither did he vehemently deny it. Prowl knew why—the Autobot leader had grown fond of the boy, and the decision which he knew to be the right one was hard to make, increasingly so because it seemed that Mikaela and Bumblebee's very sanity was depending on Optimus giving into their request.

But it would be a futile rescue. Prowl knew—experienced—first-hand the effects of reprogramming on those left behind. He knew about the hope, and he knew what it would do to one's spark when the inevitable betrayal came. And if Optimus would not deny them, then he would have to. And if he had to play the part of tyrant in what most mechs disdainfully and caustically called a story of forbidden love and woe, then so be it. It would all be worth it, if he could spare just one creature his pain.

Prowl knew that it was bad for morale, for their leader and for their second-in-command to be at such odds, albeit silent odds, but he could not take any other position of argument. Sam, Mikaela, and Bumblebee deserved no less.

It didn't make him very popular amongst the New-bots, who had included Sam in their numbers though he had apparently been unchanged where they had not. But Prowl was used to that. What was right was not always popular, and what was popular was not always right. And though Prowl did have his share of supporters, especially amongst the newly-landed Autobots, he was surprised to see that even some of the senior officers were less vocal about the younglings' foolishness than they should have been.

"Why do you not tell them, Jazz?" Prowl asked curiously one day. "You know what the right decision is—it's illogical that we are even entertaining this thought of 'rescue' at all."

Jazz just looked at him helplessly. "They love him, Prowl."

"Their love is blinding them to the truth."

"There's no use tellin' 'em, Prowl. I think it's one of those things that they have to learn by themselves."

Prowl looked upon his friend. "That's the very thing that I'm trying to prevent. That lesson could very well be their last."

**Present**

Mikaela and Bumblebee stepped out of Blaster's workroom, equipment carefully stowed in subspace. Mikaela vaguely felt that she had just come out of a bad spy movie—Blaster had ushered them into the room, presenting to them "gadgets" and detailing to them exactly what each gadget was for.

The most useful were three so-called "halos." Each would mask their frequencies from Soundwave, who would be preoccupied in battle at the time. Sam's halo would also prevent the misguided human from contacting Soundwave and alerting him to the ruse out of panic. These were essential tools for such a high-risk rescue, considering that they would have to be going into the Decepticon base, and, really, one of the main things that they had going for them was that Soundwave didn't think that they cared enough about Sam to perform such a feat.

They had only so long until the deception would be found, though. Time was of the essence.

On their way out, they bumped into—of all mechs—Prowl, who was in charge of the base ("holding down the fort") until Optimus returned.

"Where are you going?" he asked them evenly.

"Training room," Bumblebee said simply. It was the easiest explanation—they were going _somewhere, _armed to the plates, and they were going in that general direction.

They didn't like lying to Prowl…but given their "misunderstandings," they had no choice.

Prowl looked at them for a long time, and then—they must have been mistaken—his gaze seemed to soften a bit, and looked…looked almost _saddened_. "Good luck," he said finally.

"Th-Thanks," they stammered, taken aback by the totally inappropriate statement. But before she could say anything else, Prowl was already gone.

**X x X**

**Pas****t**

Sonar woke up one orn in the crook of Soundwave's arm as the mech worked on something. He stretched his frequencies out under Soundwave's gaze, whose own frequencies became more watchful as he felt his youngest stir.

Sonar shifted somewhat, trying to get a better view of Soundwave's new project, and winced when a throbbing pain came from his arm. He looked, and blinked in confusion when he saw teeth marks deeply embedded in the armour there.

He looked questioningly up at Soundwave, who answered only with a single word: "Virus."

He thought back to when he last was with Ravage, and realized in dismay that he had no memory of what occurred in the past quarter-orn. He had probably tried to run again, obligating Ravage to chase him down and drag him back to Soundwave for yet another virus cleanse. He groaned, thinking of all the teasing that awaited him later, and mourned a little for his lost memories. Each virus purge came with a price: a little bit of his memories. Usually they were "memories" that he would have had while virus-ridden, but they were his memories all the same. He yearned for the day that this virus would just be _gone _so that he wouldn't be confused all the time.

Soundwave's frequencies gave a feeling of amusement at his creation's childish frustration, and he ran his thumb gently under Sonar's chin, from cheek to cheek, and it comforted him, and he let himself stop worrying about that virus. Soundwave knew how to comfort each of his creations; knew that Lazerbeak liked being stroked on the left wing while Ratbat preferred the right; knew that Rumble just wanted a pat on the head while Frenzy wanted to be cuddled and held; and he knew that Ravage, though she would never admit it, actually liked being stroked behind her audios.

Sonar amused himself with playing with some of Soundwave's tendrils of thought—somewhat akin to a parent allowing an inquisitive child to manipulate and play with her fingers. (Although, come to think of it…how would he _know _what that even felt like…?)

At that self-directed question, something showed up in that big psychic pond, beckoning him to go deeper into the water, telling him that it would tell him exactly _why _if he'd just go closer. He was curious to what it was, and would have gone after it, except that Soundwave's firewalls rose up, quickly and unexpectedly, giving him the distinct impression of an inquisitive hand slapped away from a dangerous object.

And he looked up, startled. The only outward sign of disapproval that Soundwave gave was the barest shake of the head, and he flushed, knowing that he had almost let his abilities control him…again. There were parts of the big psychic pond that he wasn't supposed to play in, or else he'd drown in other people's thoughts. He went immediately back to Soundwave's frequencies, becoming appropriately wary of the deeper parts of that pond.

Soundwave finished what he was doing, and set the project upon the table. Sonar looked at it with curiosity, that anomaly already forgotten. The thing was almost as big as he was and was of an aerial design, a winged quadruped, inferior to Lazerbeak's and Ratbat's designs, but still formidable, given the talons that adorned it.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Classification: drone. Class: Raven."

Sonar felt Soundwave's frequencies change just a bit, hooking onto and activating the drone's programming. Gently, he guided Sonar's frequencies, directing them towards the drone's programming. It was difficult, at first, but he finally got the thing aloft for just a few clicks, before his frequencies slipped and it crashed out of the air.

Soundwave, already anticipating this, caught it, and handed it to Sonar for inspection. Though his widening eyes were hidden by his mask, Soundwave still felt his amazement, and was amused, his frequencies enveloping Sonar's comfortingly.

**Present **

Sonar had been making good progress. He had already taken out two pre-programmed drones, and was stalking a third, when his frequencies picked up something…and then proceeded to stretch out of his reach.

_Oh, please no. _Not now. He couldn't be hit by a virus now.

He stayed very still, his drones trembling. Presently, the feeling passed.

He paused, reorganizing his frequencies, secure in the knowledge that his telepathic slip wouldn't distract Soundwave or his co-creations in the least. After so many times already, they trusted that he would be able to deal with minor virus attempts.

He continued on, absently wondering what had caused his near-relapse.

And somewhere on the outskirts of the Decepticon base borders, two Autobots approached.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

**Author note: **I lied :'( (cries a little) There _are_ more flashbacks! Many more flashbacks! (cries again)

* * *

Becoming

**6**

**Past **

Bumblebee couldn't afford to hope.

Reprogramming was a constant in their world. Reprogramming wasn't evil in and of itself, per se. After the Allspark disappeared, reprogramming became very commonplace as discarded creations were taken in by childless mechs, femmes, and cassettes, and these adopted younglings abandoned the programming of the one who abandoned them.

That was the origins of reprogramming, to Cybertronians as adoptions were to humans. But even this method of reprogramming seemed horrifying to the New-bots, perhaps because he couldn't really explain it in human terms. He was never human, after all.

But then reprogramming took on a more sinister turn, as "adopting" gradually turned to abduction, and as a youngling's choice to have reprogramming done was turned into the new creators' decision that they knew what was best for the child.

Then came the memory purges…

Reprogramming was now never spoken of in a positive light.

When he had first seen Soundwave's new addition, he had been horrified. Both he and Mikaela were in shock in the days following, and his memory files of those days were a bit vague, as if his automatic defence systems were trying to spare him the pain by deliberately corrupting those files. But he did remember several Autobots coming to him and telling him of their concern for him, telling him that things were going to turn out alright, telling him not to worry…but he knew that, under their honeyed words, they were afraid.

They were afraid for him, because they had seen too many comrades killed by reprogrammed childhood "friends."

Bumblebee knew, of course. Reprogramming and faction-changing had been so common, especially during the earlier parts of the war, that barely a day went by that he didn't hear some cautionary tale about a friend-no-longer-friend. So he knew in his logic processor that…that Sam was as dead now as he was that day, so long ago, when Soundwave had taken him.

He remembered all those cautionary tales. He remembered how Sonar had been completely supportive of the Decepticons. He remembered how he had attacked the very base itself. He remembered, he calculated, he even rationalized, Prowl-style.

In his logic processor, he knew that Sam was gone.

But his spark refused to believe him.

His spark said that Sam was an organic still, so it was possible that reprogramming wasn't the same.

His spark pointed out that Sonar didn't seem as malevolent as most 'Cons. Rescuing Ravage had been his priority, not inflicting damage. He hadn't reveled in the battle either, and when Bumblebee and Mikaela gone to confront him (not knowing that he might still be himself) he actually collapsed. It wasn't a very Decepticon-thing to do.

His spark continued to tell him that Sam might be in there, trapped within that Decepticon youngling. All the pain he had felt, back in those dark days, returned to him, but this time around, it was softened by the _possibility _that maybe, just maybe, things might actually turn out okay this time.

So when Mikaela started asking Optimus—first through hints, then through outright demands—about a possible rescue mission, Bumblebee found himself asking too.

Bumblebee couldn't afford to hope, but he couldn't afford not to.

**Present**

The snow came down in torrents. According to the resident Autobot meteorologist, a storm was heading their way, and would last well into the night. Mikaela and Bumblebee were glad; they could use the weather to make their quick getaway. Everything seemed to be going according to plan.

Somewhere far from any human habitation, Mikaela and Bumblebee stood at the outskirts of the Decepticon base, and Bumblebee could go no further. Decepticon security scans would pick up his frequencies immediately. As a New-bot, Mikaela's existence was still unknown to Soundwave, and her frequencies were not registered with their security scans. Also, as a youngling, Mikaela's frequencies had not yet settled into any defining pattern, and thus had a better chance of going unnoticed by the scans. Little New-cons wandered all the time in this part of the Decepticon base; if the scans did pick up her presence, she would just be mistaken for one of them. It was a job that only a youngling could do, which was the only reason why Bumblebee hadn't insisted that they change roles, or that he perform this mission himself.

Mikaela would be going into a relatively benign part of the Decepticon base. Should anything happen, Bumblebee would swoop in and get Mikaela out of there before any _real _big bads came along. The Decepticons had sequestered all the New-cons into one area where they wouldn't be in the way of the seasoned Decepticon warriors. The Decepticons were ignorant about the Autobot's knowledge of this area, though that wouldn't last for long. They had to make use of their meager information before the Decepticons found out.

From what they had observed, the only mechs who bothered to go there were Barricade, Soundwave, and the cassettes, and Starscream only came to check on the status of his growing army. None of the New-cons left this area without an elder Decepticon escort, and Sam had very rarely been seen outside the metal structure itself.

"You know what you're doing, right?" Bumblebee asked worriedly. Mikaela gave an irritated rev of the engine.

"Yes, Bumblebee," she said exasperatedly. "I go in, find Sam, take him and get out."

"And…?"

"And no interacting with the New-cons."

"And…?"

"And be back before dinner."

Bumblebee was not amused. "And…?" he pressed, his voice hardening. Though intelligent and aware of her weaknesses (however reluctant that awareness was), Mikaela was also stubborn, and (to borrow the human phrase) very hot-blooded. She didn't like certain conditions of this mission, but Bumblebee could deal with that. What he couldn't deal with was if another one of his friends became reprogrammed.

Mikaela would be going into a Decepticon area, and even though the resident Decepticons were slightly younger and probably weaker than she was, Bumblebee wasn't taking any chances.

"And I'm not to go inside their base, even to find Sam," she said tiredly. "If he's not already outside, we abandon ship." She said this last part bitterly, and then she turned away, restraining her anger. Bumblebee was her _friend, _dammit. These limitations…they were for her own good. "I'll be okay, 'Bee," she said, tone softening. "I'll be careful."

Bumblebee nodded, and then steered the conversation away to safer matters. "Will he be outside, do you think?"

"Possibly. Probably. Soundwave doesn't let him go outside except for these little training sessions, remember? Knowing Sam, he'll take every advantage of this moment."

Neither of them mentioned that that assumption hinged on one really huge big _if. _Sonar would be outside, if Sonar actually was Sam…and if he wasn't…

"He will be outside," Mikaela said firmly. "I'll put on his halo, drag him out of there if I have to, and then we'll do some de-brainwashing."

"If you're not out before time is up…"

"Then you'll come in and drag me out."

The matter-of-fact way she said that made Bumblebee give a reluctant grin. "I'm glad that we have this understanding."

Mikaela transformed. "I'll—We'll see you soon," she promised, and then made her way inside.

And Bumblebee could only watch anxiously, and hope that their luck would hold.

**X x X**

**Past**

Frenzy knew that Sonar wasn't quite like them. Ravage, Frenzy, and Rumble were created on Cybertron, and their raw materials were Cybertronian in origin. Frenzy and Rumble were "originals," while Ravage's spark and core programming had to be transplanted into a drone's body as the original femme model was too devastated to support a spark-life. No, Sonar was more like Lazerbeak and Ratbat, originally technorganic, telepathic outcasts on their planet whom Soundwave had refined and perfected, taking them under his wing (and yes, Frenzy did make full use of that pun).

Their origins were rather diverse compared to the rest of the Decepticon army, but that little detail was nothing compared to the web of frequencies that united them with Soundwave and with each other.

The cassettes were still getting used to the frequencies of their new sibling—he wasn't a cassette like them, so it was taking longer than usual—and Frenzy lorded it over the other cassettes that he managed to connect with Sonar's frequencies faster than they did. Well, except Ravage, but if asked Frenzy would always insist that it was a tie.

Frenzy was lounging in his quarters when he felt Sonar's frequencies change. The little lullaby that played in a corner of Frenzy's processor whenever Sonar was recharging stopped abruptly. More exasperated than curious, he went to Ravage's quarters where Sonar usually slept, and found that the berth was, indeed, empty, and the Raven drones littered the room like forgotten toys.

_Stupid little glitch, _Frenzy thought, and his gaze went to a corner of the room. Predictably, the opening to the vents was no longer covered. Why did they need a ventilation system anyway, let alone one large enough that Sonar could waltz merrily through it? Their species didn't even **breathe, **scrappit. _Whoever thought up the building plans of this place is going to __**die. **_

The natural order of things was that Frenzy got to play with this new sibling—Ravage was the one who was supposed to babysit him. But Ravage was out on a mission, Rumble would ignore his frequencies, and the flying twits would be more of a hindrance than a help.

So, to Frenzy's chagrin, he had to be the responsible one. He followed Sonar's frequencies until he came to one of the ventilation shaft openings. Sonar was silhouetted against the moonlight, looking smaller and more pathetic than he usually did.

"Sonar?" Frenzy demanded. Said sibling turned around. "What are you doing?" Frenzy continued. "You're not supposed to go outside. Soundwave will be angry that you even made it this far." Usually the words _Soundwave will be angry _was enough to make Sonar start trembling—it was actually kind of funny, and he and Rumble often took advantage of this quirk—but now his youngest co-creation just looked at him blankly.

"Someone's crying," he said. "They're really sad. They miss someone." He was still speaking in Cybertronian, which meant that this fit of weirdness was only a minor glitch and not a full-on virus. His accent was even starting to get better, which meant that the vocal implants were finally starting to kick in. Frenzy was glad. He didn't know how much more he could take of the horrible accent that came with the organic raw materials.

But who was this 'they' that he was speaking of?

Soundwave had told them that Sonar wasn't exactly a cassette. Frenzy only heard his own thoughts, the thoughts of his siblings, and the thoughts of Soundwave. Sonar apparently heard many more voices, and a lot of them weren't even real. Frenzy came closer, and took a good look at Sonar's glazed eyes and then clicked, irritated. Scrappit, Sonar wasn't even fully awake!

"Come on, then," he said, wrapping his spindly fingers around Sonar's wrist. Sonar, unresisting, let his older sibling pull him back into the dark.

**Present**

Sonar had been reluctant to go outside. Even though his quarantine borders extended to the surrounding lands, 'outside' still had a negative stigma to it. Outside was where all the voices started getting louder.

But all the drones inside the base had already been dealt with. The New-cons had taken some hits as well; the tiny Nokiacons, Eeny, Meeny, Miney and Mo had gone down defeating two at the same time, and Blitz had somehow gotten surrounded by a drone _pack, _managing to take down half before succumbing to the blasts himself_._ A good quarter of the players were now in induced stasis, and there were still many more drones left to defeat.

Sonar had the advantage of knowing where his enemies were, but this advantage had its limits. Using the same frequencies, the drones could also find _him. _He couldn't afford to stay in one place for long, and he didn't like waiting.

And besides, it had been such a long time since he had stepped foot onto the base grounds. An opportunity like this might not come again for a long time.

He left half his Ravens to scout the indoors in case any of the drones returned, and took the other half with him outside. There was a double-layer of technopathic shielding that layered the base: one encompassing the grounds, and another one found inside encompassing the base. As he left the metal structure and step foot on the snowy terrain, he felt a considerable increase in pressure, but he could stand it.

Soundwave's firewalls were still reassuringly solid, and no voices leaked from the great Out There. The voices themselves he could deal with; they were merely annoying, like a coy, not-as-childish-as-he-acts Ratbat asking questions persistently. It was the _screams _and the _cries _that got to him…

He ignored these apprehensions. Soundwave wouldn't let any of the voices get to him.

More confident now, he did a quick frequency check, and started towards the nearest (and hopefully unsuspecting) drone.

The heavy snowfall didn't completely blind him, as his mask and viewing screens filtered infrared light to his eyes, and he could still see the drone through a mist of cold. But he wasn't used to dealing with the outdoors, and stumbled more than once on the snow-covered rocks. Curiously, the drone didn't notice. He found out why almost immediately when the drone gave a harsh screech and threw itself forward in a confrontation.

The would-be prey sidestepped the assault, and dodged the blast. Sonar hung back, taking cover amongst some rubble, mindful of the unspoken New-con code of not stealing each other's prey. The newcomer was a body of red and orange in his viewing screens, and was femme in shape. The New-cons did have femmes, but this one was much smaller than the others.

She must have been a new arrival. He was surprised. He was usually the first to register the presence of a New-con within a huge radius around the Decepticon base, and he had thought that the New-cons were all gathered already. But then again, he often didn't _see _the New-con until orns of their initial arrival. It was possible that he had just missed this one's frequencies.

She dispatched the drone with ease, and looked around, probably looking for another prey. Satisfied with the outcome, he turned to leave, but then caught a few strings of her frequencies. Surprised, he stepped out into the open, his remaining Raven drones shuffling restlessly in the background. "Hello," he said, immediately embarrassed by the lame opening. She turned to him, optics widening. She didn't say anything, so he rushed to fill the silence. "Do I know you?" he asked. "Your frequencies feel so familiar to me."

She still remained silent, her optics shuttering, as if not believing what she was seeing. Sonar thought that maybe she didn't understand Cybertronian. A lot of the New-cons came in unable to verbally communicate, or worse, communicating only in that strange human language.

She must have been very new. Usually Lord Starscream would have the New-cons upgraded as soon as possible from their newly-sparked, almost-a-drone status. She must have been so emotionally starved, poor thing.

"Umm…" Sonar said, not knowing how to continue. "Uh, I," he said, pointing to himself, "Sonar."

At the name, something seemed to click inside her. "Hi!" she said, rushing towards him with such speed that he actually stepped back, his Raven drones mirroring his movements.

"Oh," he said, relieved. "So you _can _speak our language."

"A little," she said, and he could detect a trace of an accent.

He would have said something further, except that a screech sounded in the distance, followed by the sound of activated blasters. He looked in that direction, startled. "Scrap," he muttered. "I almost forgot that we were in a training session…"

"How long do these training sessions last?" she asked curiously.

Yes, she must have been a _very _new addition.

"Maybe an orn or two." At her silence, he added, "When the local star goes up and down about eight times."

"You mean these things go on for more than a week?"

He tilted his head a fraction. "What's a week?"

Her shoulders did a strange movement, lifting up and down quickly. He couldn't make sense of the gesture. "Never mind. Forget I said anything."

Another screech sounded, closer this time. "Well…" Sonar said, backing away. "I guess I'll…"

"Wait," she said, and he turned back. "Can we go together?"

He stared at her. New-cons were usually pretty solitary, the only exception being the tiny gestalt group of Eeny, Meeny, Miney and Mo. As a technopath coming from Soundwave's group…it felt kind of strange, and a little lonely.

"Sure!" he said enthusiastically, welcoming the change, and then coughed, embarrassed that he let his emotions show so violently. Soundwave wouldn't have approved of that.

"Come on, then," she said, already leading the way.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

* * *

Becoming

**7**

**Past**

Sonar was having a strange dream.

He was wandering down a long, meandering hall, surrounded by wall after wall of mirrors. The floor was covered in tiles of black and white and red, and the ceiling seemed to swirl with endless shadows. There was a slight breeze, though there was no exit to be seen, and indiscernible whispers pervaded in it, punctuated every so often by soft laughter. No matter how hard Sonar tried tuning into those whispers, they continued to evade him.

He didn't have his drones with him, which was odd. They had become a part of him ever since Soundwave had created the first one, becoming as natural to him as the implants that trailed his body and the armour he wore. What was stranger was that he didn't have his mask on; he rarely removed it, and felt naked without it, as if his armour had become very revealing and he was showing too much wire. But without his mask he saw things through visible light and not infrared.

The alien colours that seeped into his vision were bizarre, but strangely comforting.

It was the only source of comfort in this place. The mirrors were seriously creeping him out. They weren't even mirrors, more like glimpses into…he didn't know.

The mirrors on his right side showed beings—femmes, mechs, cassettes, and beings alien to both Cyberton and Earth—snarling at their almost-identical images in the other side. They were clad in gold and red, their blue optics ice cold. The images opposite to them mirrored every single one of their movements, but the images on the right were dark and silver copies, their optics glowing a fierce red as they made threatening gestures towards the other side. Still, there was no noise. The glass barricaded all of it, separating it from him, and separated the images from each other.

Normally such a sight would have sent him running out of there. But, of course, this being a dream, he continued onwards, his unease shown only by a passing wish that Soundwave or Ravage were there.

He reached the end of the hall, where the walls, ceiling, and floor tapered off to meet the edges of a single tall mirror in an elegant ebony frame. He neared the end, expecting to see himself there—and was surprised when the being reflecting his every movement was a human.

He was male, well into the age of sexual maturity but not yet a full grown adult, whose brown eyes mirrored Sonar's own.

He felt very fond of this human, though he didn't know why, as if he was one of his co-creations. He raised a hand to greet him, the human mirroring his movements, and pressed his palm against the glass. They leaned in towards each other, foreheads meeting, as though if they tried hard enough they could pass through the mirror that separated them.

"Hello," they said softly. "Do we know each other?"

And they answered each other's question with: "Why have you forgotten?"

And then he woke up, starting with such force that Ratbat, whose recharge berth he had crawled into, actually squawked and tumbled off the edge, wings askew.

"What was that for?" Ratbat demanded, indignant, climbing back onto the berth.

"Sorry, sorry…" Sonar muttered confusedly, trying to gather his wits. His frequencies behaved erratically, the outgoing signals lacking a distinct rhythm, and he clumsily tried and failed to connect to his drones, something that he did almost unconsciously most days.

Ratbat watched the display impassively, and then made a gesture of exasperation. He signaled to Soundwave that he'd be able to take care of this, and Soundwave's frequencies hung back. Ratbat knew why; it had been the same with him and Lazerbeak, when they were first brought online, elevated from their disgusting technorganic status through Soundwave's care. Even if Sonar wasn't exactly a cassette, he was still _theirs, _slaggit, and it was vital that he connected well to each of them. Sonar had already connected with Ravage and Frenzy, but his connection to Rumble, Lazerbeak, and Ratbat needed to build more.

"Come here," he said, gathering the smaller being in his wings. Sonar hesitated, as if considering pulling away, but then relaxed, his drones becoming still. Then, like what all his older co-creations used to do for him (and, Ratbat would never admit, would still sometimes do for him), Ratbat changed his outgoing frequencies, sending a soothing lullaby into Sonar's mind.

And when Sonar next awoke, he didn't remember the dream that startled him so. Just as well, Ratbat thought. It couldn't have been important anyway.

**Present**

They would have made a strange sight to any passerby, a white femme being followed clumsily by a silver-and-black shaped, who was in turn followed by five winged quadrupeds. But Sonar didn't really care. It felt good, to be around her.

Her frequencies still felt young, so he guessed that she was about his age, give or take a vorn. She didn't seem to be very good at controlling them, and he could read them easily like an unlocked data pad. He could tell that she was afraid, and anxious, but determined. He hooked onto her frequencies in what he hoped came across as a comforting manner. He had done it for all the New-cons who came over to the base, connecting him with them and them with each other. She seemed grateful, and again he felt a surge of pity.

In general, Decepticons were models built to be alone, but the New-cons still craved each other's company. And no matter how many times they divided for the hunt, they would always find a way back to each other, to keep each other warm at night.

They were a unit, in all their dysfunctional glory, which meant that she was unit now too, and that she didn't have to be alone anymore. He hoped that the femme knew that.

And, for some reason, it felt important that she…she approved of him.

It was a very strange feeling. He had never sought anyone's approval except Soundwave's and for those of his co-creations. And yet, here was this femme who he had just met barely a breem ago, and already it was important to him that she didn't see him as a glitched, bumbling, second-rate technopath.

The snow came down harder now. Sonar could barely see his drones; the normally warm humming of wires and gears and processing chips was overridden by the coldness that permeated their exterior armour. The femme was more easily seen in his viewing screens, but even she was fading against the cold backdrop. He was relying more on frequency pattern than sight, but he was hesitant to make his frequencies reach out more. The drones could still find them.

The femme stopped, and he came up behind her, getting his drones to surround them in an attempt to shelter both of them against the wind. "We should stop for a bit," the femme suggested, and he realized that she was probably having trouble seeing as well. "Until things lighten up a bit. We can't see what we're hunting."

"Alright," he said.

"There's a niche-thing over there," she gestured, and he'd have to take her word for it. Then she moved again, his drones parting for her, and they followed.

She entered into the crevice first, shaking the snow off her. "Whew," she said, and he remained silently puzzled as to what the word meant. "Nice to get out of the freezer for a while."

She settled down as far as she could from the entrance. Sonar hesitated, and then, realizing with incredible slowness that he had an opportunity, settled down beside her. She looked at him, her frequencies feeling inquisitive. "We'll stay warmer if we're together," he said evenly.

"Alright," she said, leaning closer against him. That felt really good, although Sonar didn't know why. There was a pause, and then she remarked lightly, "Smooth move."

He flushed, and then grinned from underneath his mask.

It felt pretty good, lying next to her like this, even in the raging storm. And, even though he had planned to stay awake, he drifted to sleep, the two Ravens on either side of them sheltering them with their wings.

**X x X**

Now that she had settled down and had time to just _think, _Mikaela reflected that navigating into the place wasn't nearly as hard as navigating out. She had weaved in and out of the rocks and jagged peaks, trying to quickly make their way to Bumblebee, but Sam wasn't helping progress much, going off on time-consuming side-quests. It kind of made Mikaela want to say, "To hell with this," scoop him up and just _go. _But to be fair, he _was _still hunting the pre-programmed drones, and she couldn't afford to drop her New-con disguise just yet, but still…

And then she had had to make sure that they were not seen by any passing New-cons. Even though Sam seemed to be perfectly accepting of her presence, there would be those that were slightly more street-savvy and would ask pesky questions like: _Where the heck did you come from? _

They had once tried to save the New-cons. "No being is sparked evil," Optimus had said. But they were too late, and though she felt guilty about taking Sam only and leaving the others behind to what would certainly be a grim fate, an all-out New-con rescue was out of the question. They were too far in, some already seen on the battlefield next to their mentors, and many already so loyal to Starscream that they already bore the Decepticon insignia. The Autobots had not acted soon enough.

But she was surprised to see how…how _happy _they seemed. They didn't seem starved or neglected, and they certainly weren't cowering lumps of fear. Even some monsters, it seemed, were good to their babies, if only because said babies would grow up to be loyal and unquestioning minions.

But even though she knew that the Decepticons didn't love these newly-sparked, a strange feeling of familiarity threw her for a loop. At a distance, she saw how the New-cons stalked and hunted the drones, little predators perfecting their hunting techniques. And she remembered, from not-so-long ago, how the New-bots would be in the simulation room with Jazz, at the shooting range with Ironhide, training in a terrain environment with Hound and learning to distinguish illusion from reality…

The nostalgia gave Mikaela a strange, unpleasant feeling, and she pushed it away. There were more important things to think about. Getting out of this stupid, snowy, rocky maze, for one.

The Decepticon base was located deep inside a mountain ridge. The locale certainly went along with the Decepticons' superiority complex, as they had set up their base where the all would have to look up to see them. She had seen, from a distance, that the base itself was made out of some sort of alien metal, looking like it was made of ice and glass. Sam would have said that it was like the Decepticons were heavily inspired by Superman's Fortress of Solitude.

She'd have to tell him that comparison later, when he was alright again.

She hadn't recognized him at first, so she had been caught off-guard when he had approached her after she finished off her attacker. He was lightly equipped, his armour made for espionage rather than for battle. His face was hidden from her, underneath a black mask dotted with circular light receptors, three going down vertically on one side and three on the other, filtering the field of view to Sam's viewing screens.

She knew what lay beneath all that armour—vein upon vein of metal implants, fully integrated into the body underneath, metal veins and organic flesh becoming one. Ratchet never suggested taking them out, and, knowing her mentor, he probably never even considered it. It was just too dangerous.

The scars, both physical and psychological, that Soundwave gave him would stay with Sam long after he left the homicidal 'Con who kidnapped and brainwashed him in the first place.

She kept reminding herself that underneath it all, he was still Sam. Still a dork, still eager to show off only to fall flat on his face as soon as he started running, still nice and decent and…

And comforting. Even now, his frequencies gently hooked up with hers, as if she was a newly-sparked that needed guidance. He had assumed she was. She had been surprised. None of the Autobots had ever been so…well, she didn't want to say _forward, _because that would sound oversensitive, but she couldn't think of any other word.

It was nice.

But what the hell was it with his "equipment?" Were those "Ravens" (as he called them) seriously miniature purple griffins? Honestly, who the heck thought up that sick shit?

She shook her head. 'Cons were either real crazy or real bored.

The griffin-drone on her left side hummed, warm and strangely soothing. And then, gradually, its optics faded, and its system seemed to shut down. Its metal started getting colder.

Then she felt Sam slump against her shoulder, and realized that, in true Sam fashion, he had fallen asleep when he shouldn't have had.

She had to take advantage of this situation.

Carefully, moving so that she wouldn't rouse him, she took off his mask.

She froze when she saw, up close, exactly what Soundwave had done. If she had been physically human, she would have felt like throwing up. His _face…_he barely looked like the Sam she remembered. The metal implants tracked across his face, some as thick as her wires and others as fine as thread, tracking over his lips and cheeks and into the sockets of his _eyes…_

Mikaela shook her head sharply. _He's still Sam. That's all that matters. _She looked at his temples, and, to her surprise, there was already a halo in place. Soundwave must have put it there as a method of control.

Gently, very gently, she replaced his halo with the one that Blaster had made. The halo quickly integrated with his implants. Unlike the other one, this one was custom-made and password-locked, and it wouldn't come off without that password, which pretty much consisted of a distinct frequency pattern that only Blaster knew.

She had a brief moment of regret that she hadn't learned as much about technopathy as she could before this incident. It was certainly a fascinating subject; the psychology of a Cybertronian was almost as interesting as the physiology. She berated herself for her ignorance, but in her eagerness to reclaim Sam…

She shrugged it off. There would be time for such things.

After making sure that Sam was still out of it—he was still the same heavy sleeper, thank goodness—Mikaela connected her frequencies with Bumblebee's. _He's asleep, _Mikaela privately. _Are we close enough? _

_Almost. We're out of the Dece__pticon scanning area, so you won't have to worry about your frequencies getting picked up anymore. Blaster's protection can start just a breem or so of walking distance ahead. _

Mikaela closed her optics, leaning back. So close, so very, very close…

_Are we close enough to you?_ she asked after a moment of silence._ You know what Ratchet said…about re-memorizing and all that…_

Ratchet was one of the many Autobots to neither openly oppose nor support their opinions about "Sonar." However, he had been telling Mikaela (in passing, of course, and always relevant to the lesson of-the-day), some things about reprogramming. Sometimes he and Ironhide would be having conversations about the subject, and either Mikaela or Bumblebee would be close enough to overhear it. Regardless of where Ratchet and Ironhide stood on the subject, Mikaela was grateful for the information.

Among other, pessimistic viewpoints, they had learned that sometimes, if they were very, very lucky, the Autobots could reclaim a reprogrammed youngling and fix him, putting an end to the Decepticon farce and freeing the youngling. If the youngling became too old and his frequencies already established, there was no hope of reprogramming. The youngling wouldn't remember anything from the day he was captured and reprogrammed, with the forgotten memories coming back slowly, if they came back at all. Scientists theorized that it was the processor's method of coping, by deliberately corrupting the files that would surely drive the youngling insane.

What would happen next depended on the youngling involved.

However, they were told that the memories tended to come back in a less traumatizing manner if the patient woke up to familiar faces, familiar places. Ideally they would have liked Sam to wake up at the base, waking up to Optimus and Ratchet and Ironhide and Jazz and…

But they would work with what they got. They always did.

It would be a long road ahead, but what mattered was that they would have Sam back.

At her question, she wasn't sure, but she did feel that Bumblebee was amused. _You're a few clicks away from me, _he said.

_Well, get your aft over here, Cybertronian! _Mikaela said in a mock-condescending tone.

_Will do, Earthling, _Bumblebee said affectionately, shutting off the communication line. Mikaela could feel him coming as quickly as discretion would allow.

She settled back, and watched the form, silver and black against the rocks and thin layer of snow and ice, both of them sheltered by the wings of the drones.

Hopefully, when he woke up, Sam would be Sam again.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

* * *

Becoming

**8**

**Past**

It was a beautiful sunny day, the kind of day where Annabelle Lennox would beg her mother or Andrew to take her to the local amusement park. But she didn't. Today, she just held her mother's hand as they set flowers atop a gravestone. Andrew wasn't there; he knew that this was something that Annabelle and Sarah needed to do alone.

Annabelle didn't remember this man who her mother missed so much. She had barely been a year old when her father passed away. To her, her mother had been enough, and later Andrew, who had met her mother when Annabelle was two and had married the widow a few years later, had filled the role.

If she felt any sorrow, it was for her mother's sake.

They stayed there for a long time, and then Sarah and Annabelle went home.

As Annabelle clambered into their car (in the backseat, as to her chagrin she was still too small to ride up front), she spotted a small black car around the corner. She thought it looked familiar…but then her mother started the car, and they were gone before Annabelle could figure out whether or not she had seen it before.

The Lexus stayed park beside the curb for a very long time, and in the middle of the night, a black truck pulled alongside it, its driver looking blankly ahead.

They didn't say anything. Will didn't _want _anything to be said. He just stayed there, looking at the small gathering of tombstones.

It had been a small, private funeral, and there had been no body. It was such a strange feeling, all those years ago, attending his own funeral, and now looking down upon his own grave.

And though the grave bore his name only, he could only see the names of his wife and daughter engraved there.

Things had changed so much. It wasn't fair that he left them; wasn't fair that his girl had grown up without a father and that his wife had cried endless tears for a man who was still very much _alive. _But it was so dangerous. He couldn't approach them again. The Decepticons were already suspicious as to the origin of the New-bots, the Autobot's own little baby boom, and they would stop at nothing at getting additions to their own ranks.

He loved his family, and he had to stay away from them. It was the only thing he could do for them.

And so he watched them. He watched his little girl grow up and his wife grow older. He watched as another man came into their lives. He watched as they, slowly but surely, started to move on again.

There was still some pain, and there would always be pain, but despite all things life moved on, and Will didn't know what to feel about that.

And when his wife and daughter were gone, he thought in a brief moment of bitterness, then the fates have what they wanted, for all that remained of William Lennox would die with them.

"Come on, Will," Ironhide said, as softly as a mech like himself was able. "Let's go home."

For some odd reason, still looking at that graveyard, Will thought, _I am home. _It was a chilling, morbid thought, and he shook it away quickly. He quietly assented with his guardian-slash-friend-slash-comrade, and they drove back to the Autobot base.

**Present**

Bumblebee approached the little shelter where Mikaela had managed to isolate Sam. The snow was still falling heavily, so even his obvious yellow paintjob was barely seen in this world of white and grey. The winds blew and howled, but he barely heard them. The sound of silence overrode all else. He hovered around the entrance, uncertain. So much time spent grieving him, spent missing him, spent worried about him…unknowingly spent attacking him…and he chose _now _to have what humans called cold feet? Now, when his goal was barely five human-sized feet from him?

His hand came to his temple, unconsciously rubbing against the halo there. Mikaela had gone through alright; her shifting frequencies had masked her presence, as they predicted, and the halo that discreetly blended in with her helm had provided her with extra protection, but the sooner they got out of the unfriendly zone, the better.

"Bumblebee?" Mikaela asked quietly, her gaze never leaving a still-sleeping Sam. "What are you doing? Come on in."

Bumblebee said, without meaning to, "What if he doesn't remember me?"

"Of course he'll remember you, 'Bee," Mikaela said, finally turning towards him and giving him her shaky New-bot smile. "You're his best friend."

Bumblebee felt some reassurance, and he ducked inside, maneuvering himself so that his back touched the wall of the crevice. He felt that it was important that when Sam woke up, he didn't find himself cornered by a sixteen-foot tall Autobot. When Sam had still been…When Soundwave hadn't…well, Sam had often told him that his face wasn't a pleasant one to wake up to.

"Look, 'Bee," Mikaela said softly, sadly, almost to herself. She gently caressed a side of Sam's cheek. "Look what they did to him."

Bumblebee did look, and for Mikaela's sake repressed a shudder. They had caught a fleeting glimpse of him that day, so long ago, when he had been tricked to come to Ravage's aid, but to see him now, up-close and so still…

"What are we going to tell him?" he asked quietly, going down on one knee, his scans memorizing the new face of an old friend. "So much time has passed…his parents…"

"There'll be time, 'Bee," Mikaela said forcefully, clearly dreading having to tell Sam the truth as much as Bumblebee did. "The most important thing is that we have him now."

Bumblebee had so many things to tell Sam. He was so close, so very, very close. But the questions, the promises, the reassurances, the explanations, that simple string of three words too often taken for granted…Bumblebee's processor went blank as Sam finally opened his eyes.

Both he and Mikaela tensed, wanting so _badly _to just welcome him back with arms wide open and laughs and tears and—but they would have to be careful. There was a high chance that some residues would remain—some vague personality quirks that would have been Sonar's would still be present in Sam. A persistent virus, so to speak. These residues would fade as time went on and as Sam recovered and his own frequencies—his own, true, uncorrupted frequencies—were established. But for now…for now, Sam was going to be one very confused human.

He was probably already in a lot of trauma. They'd have to take things slowly.

He yawned and stretched, and rubbed his eyes before realizing that he had a rapt audience. Bumblebee and Mikaela backed away from him, wanting to give him the space to get a look at their faces, to get the old memories going…

He looked up, and behind all the wires and implants they could still recognize his sorely-missed eyes. If they had been physically human, there would have been a sharp intake of breath. But as it was, Mikaela and Bumblebee didn't dare move, as if this moment were too fragile to withstand even the slightest twitch.

"Uh…hi," Sam said, getting up and giving a tentative wave directed somewhere over Bumblebee's shoulder. He spoke in English, and didn't seem to notice the butchered quality of his voice. They didn't know if that was a good sign or not.

"Sam?" Bumblebee asked quietly, hopefully. Sam didn't respond to the name, but instead continuing to blankly look at a place over Bumblebee's right shoulder. Dread started creeping into Bumblebee's spark, but he forcefully pushed it away. He decided to try another approach.

"Do you know who we are?" he asked, gesturing to himself and to Mikaela.

"Yeah," Sam said after a pause, finally looking Bumblebee in the optics. "Yeah. You're Autobots."

Well. They weren't expecting that. Bumblebee and Mikaela gave each other an uncertain glance.

"Yes," Bumblebee said after a pause, a little apprehensively. It was far from the response that he was hoping for.

Then Sam gave them a loopy half-smile, and for a precious moment they almost recognized him. "You're Bumblebee…and you're Mikaela." They felt a sense of relief wash over them.

"Yes." Mikaela began to smile.

"And…we're…friends," he said that last word with conviction, and with affection. Bumblebee began to hope.

"Yes," Mikaela said. "And your name is?" She leaned forward, on the verge of throwing her arms around him and Bumblebee did too, wanting so badly to make sure that his friend was real and was _here_, but he couldn't help but feel that something was slightly off. Maybe it was because of the strange quality in Sam's calm, almost serene tone, or maybe because, after all this time, this just felt too easy, and what in the world was that awful sound—

But that last question seemed to trouble Sam. And then his quiet smile gave way to a look of pure horror. He bolted away from them, his back meeting a wall of the crevice, face in his hands. The noise, which had started out so quietly that they hadn't noticed it, became unbearable. And then it hit them: Sam was _screaming. _

They started towards him, but suddenly found themselves confronted by wings and talons, their screeches overriding the howling winds. Sam had activated the drones. He scrambled further away from them, stumbling in the ice and snow. "Who are you?" he demanded, this time in Cybertronian, his butchered voice barely heard over the screeches and caws. He gave an agonized cry, keeling over and picking himself up with difficulty, staggering to regain his balance. "Who are you? What do you want? _What have you done to me?!_"

They shocked, they were being attacked, they couldn't reach him…and the _noise…_And was Sam trying to hack into their processors?! Bumblebee could feel it, invaders trying to cross the threshold, a pressure being applied to the shields drawn by the halos that Blaster gave them, a desperate hammering against his shields…

Bumblebee quickly fortified his firewalls, ordering Mikaela to do the same. _Sam…Sam's attacking__us, _Bumblebee thought almost numbly, trying to shield Mikaela from the drones, both of them trying to shield their minds from…from _Sam_. "Sam! We're not going to hurt you! It's us, Sam!" Bumblebee said, almost begging, trying to keep the drone at bay.

"Sam! Wait!" Mikaela called desperately, trying to see him past the attacking drones. Sam limped his way towards the exit, the agonized look of one betrayed writ all over his small, pale, mutilated face.

Then he screeched, voice breaking, "I'm not Sam!"

And then the noise stopped, and he was gone.

**Past**

After his meeting with Optimus, Blaster returned to his quarters, the thoughts of his cassettes absently playing in one part of his processor, a local radio channel playing discreetly in another part, another part maintaining the external firewalls around the Autobot base in addition to the insentient firewalls, and still another part watching out for invading frequencies.

_What is Sam to him? What was the purpose? _Optimus' question had caught Blaster off-guard. He had spent so long finding out exactly _what _had happened that he never really gave a thought as to _why. _Still, he stood by his answer: that Sam was a useful little tool, too useful to be kept in Autobot hands but too weak to pose any threat to the Decepticons, and that was why Soundwave had taken him.

Soundwave had pulled stunts like this before, as indicated by the fliers, Lazerbeak and Ratbat, who were not Cybertronian in origin but who had undergone so much under Soundwave's hands that they looked nearly indistinguishable from Cybertronian cassettes. To Soundwave, technopathy was a beautiful gift, and non-Cybertronian practitioners or sensitives were…well, they were something to him, maybe.

Blaster shook his head. There he was again, thinking like so many foolish mechs who thought that Soundwave had an Autobot spark with Decepticon programming. _Fraggit, what idiots, _he'd always think incredulously. What made mechs like that think that Soundwave was actually _nice? _It would be a stretch to call him a Megatron or a Starscream, but you'd think that by now, mechs would realize that less than half of his children were actually even "his." Lazerbeak and Ratbat had been kidnapped from their technorganic-based planet, brainwashed, and put through who knew what; Rumble and Frenzy just _might_ not have been ill-gotten like the others; and Ravage's spark had been that of a reprogrammed _youngling_, a youngling who had been dragged kicking and screaming from the battlefields_. _And now, Sam…

And these things he did to what mechs regarded as his creations. Didn't they remember what he did to his _enemies? _He was a high-ranking officer for very good reasons, and, despite his loyalty to Megatron, was still retained by Starscream for those very same reasons.

Whoever did things like that was most certainly _not nice. _

And yet…even their own creators had always believed that Soundwave was soft.

Ultrasound and Wavelength would have said that Soundwave was very sentimental. To them, the Cybertronian race was the ultimate species, with body plan, processor, and society that all other beings strived towards. Soundwave had always had a fascination with beings from other planets. However, Blaster thought that his partial co-creation had too many screws loose and too many gears whirring to actually have sentimentality. Soundwave would see a creature, dismiss the importance of its existence, see what he viewed to be a slightly more interesting creature, and wonder how he could "improve" it.

Blaster had been a joint creation between Soundwave's creators and Jazz's creator. Soundwave's creators, the bondeds Ultrasound and Wavelength, had been highly regarded teachers at a "school for the technopathically inclined" in Iacon. Jazz's creator had been a rescue worker, a hero, often going right onto the highly unstable grounds on Cybertron in order to rescue fallen flyers and seekers and grounded mechs who had somehow ended up there. He had been a big, burly mech, his shadow alone easily swallowing the frames of Ultrasound and Wavelength together, taller than Optimus and more heavily built than Ironhide. His name was Jingles.

Jingles had designed Blaster's programming, which, Blaster often said, was the reason that he wasn't the stiff that Soundwave was. Jingles had had a falling out with Ultrasound and Wavelength after, and by that time Blaster was too old for reprogramming, which worked highly in Blaster's favour. He'd terminate before he became the stuck-up glitch that Ultrasound and Wavelength would have forced him to be, seeing as, for better or for worse, the governing authorities decided that Blaster should remain in Ultrasound and Wavelength's care. Some programming tended to reverberate more with the spark that it maintained, and he knew that his spark wanted no other mech's programming than Jingles.'

Soundwave was undoubtedly the favourite of their creators, and not only because he was free of Jingles' "taint." Soundwave was the perfect, talented, self-respecting technopath, able to communicate clearly a few clicks from being sparked. To his creators' delight, he grew up cold, tactical, emotionless, and logical, speaking in a strange, clipped manner because those who did not communicate telepathically was not worth speaking to. Still, to them, he had that pesky…sentimentality.

Blaster had always thought it was an obsession, a desire for control. Sentimentality meant affection, or…or love.

Blaster…wasn't sure if Soundwave even felt those.

But Blaster was sure that Soundwave had a strange fascination with technopathics, and the further from Cybertron their origins were, the better. It was an obsession that was matched only by loyalty to the Decepticons.

To Soundwave, a technopathic, organic creature such as Sam must have been a prize beyond measure, a toy that he just had to have.

So yes, Blaster was sure that his answer to Optimus was the correct one. He was sure.

_Just what are you thinking, brother? _Blaster thought absently, leaning back in his seat. There was a very brief moment of silence, and he only realized his mistake a click too late.

_You leave yourself too open, little one, _came an amused voice. Before he could react, Blaster could feel his cassettes, as one, cut the line that Blaster had wandered into. Blaster looked down at his hands, saw his metal trembling and his wires cackling alight, and forced himself to calm down. He was an idiot; a suicidal idiot. He frantically scrambled the lines to the protests of his unknowing comrades, hoping fervently that Soundwave hadn't gotten anything important.

_Are we okay now? _asked Rewind's small voice after a pause. Though they were far from him, in the rec room, on patrol, and places he'd rather not know about, Blaster could hear Steeljaw's low growls and Ramhorn's angry stamping, could hear Eject's rants and Rewind's patient questions. The frequencies of his cassettes swept over him, soothing, each in their own way, and Blaster's frequencies were calmed.

_Yeah, _he answered at length, checking and re-checking the firewalls. He enveloped their frequencies with his own, protective ones. _We're okay now. _


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

* * *

Becoming

**9**

**Past **

The little glitch dubbed "Sonar" had had yet another collapse, and the communications officer was spending his scant recharge time nursing the thing back to health.

Now, Barricade had nothing against the newly-improved squishy, (indeed, Barricade found him more tolerable than some of his other co-creations) and he had nothing against Soundwave. But to Barricade, the squishy was a pet. It was a cute pet that could perform neat tricks, but still a pet; to be spoiled and to be scolded but not to be taken seriously. But there Soundwave was, treating it like the Allspark sparked it just for him. Times like these, Barricade found himself thinking that Soundwave was just too soft.

Soundwave had been an exceptionally talented technopath; spark-gifted, his creators often boasted. He could have been a well-respected professor or high-ranking government official, lapping up all the luxuries that the declining Golden Age still had to offer. Instead, Soundwave had chosen to serve under a then-unknown government bureaucrat, Megatron, and his creators wrote him off as their most spectacular failure, worse than their tainted Autobot glitch.

And then the war came, and in the times where the best in mechs shine and where the worst swallow loved ones whole, Soundwave had disappeared for orns, gone into the battlefield without explanation. No one knew where he had went, save for Megatron, and the Decepticon leader wasn't telling anyone. Soundwave was still doing his job; what he did on the battlefield wasn't any of Megatron's concern just as long as he was _on _it, serving their cause.

And then, with just as little fanfare, he returned, covered in scratches and processed energon and one optic gouged out, and in his arms was a newly-programmed quadruped cassette.

Barricade, just another lowly grunt in the militia at the time, was assigned to watch this new little glitch as Soundwave was taken to the repair wards. She had snarled at him, her optics alternating quickly between red and blue, and she acted as though over-energized. Her processor capacity had been that of a drone.

Word was on the Decepticon grapevine that Soundwave had found an abandoned Autobot youngling wandering the fields, her shell broken beyond repair and her programming severely corrupted to the point where she could no longer recognize friend from foe. They said that she had hunted down and terminated other abandoned younglings in her rage and confusion. Though she had been violent, Soundwave had managed to restrain her, performed an emergency spark transplant into the body of a drone, and came up with a temporary program that would maintain and anchor the spark until Soundwave had time to perfect both the mind and the body.

Barricade had listened to the tale with incredulity, and a little bit of disgust. So _that _was where all of Soundwave's injuries came from? The fact that he refused to fight back as he rescued a youngling—and an Autobot one, though to Barricade's relief he had rewritten that part of the program.

But then Barricade remembered how he, himself, had been found under similar circumstances, and he forced himself to have more patience with the semi-drone gnawing on his leg.

Babysitting Ravage had been Barricade's first encounter with Soundwave, though it wasn't the last. And each time he saw him, Soundwave had a new little glitch with him.

Soundwave and his unit had quickly gained respect in the growing Decepticon army, but to Barricade it was apparent that the cassettes were little more than drones without Soundwave, and the non-Cybertronian cassettes less than drones. At Soundwave's request, Barricade had originally taken Frenzy on as a temporary partner, and he had heard all the great tales of the little hacker. And though he certainly was useful…a drone such as Skorponok would have been less effective, maybe, but also much less troublesome.

He knew that Soundwave was a master technopath. From an early age, Soundwave had already been able to influence non-sentient machines. Why go through all this trouble when drones could do the same?

Barricade had witnessed orns where Soundwave did not recharge due to Ravage's virus. He had witnessed shifts where Soundwave's frequencies seemed just a bit off and the mech himself just a bit unfocused because Rumble and Frenzy were duking it out again and weren't being quiet about it. He had witnessed nights where Soundwave had wasted his valuable time making sure that Lazerbeak and Ratbat's transition from technorganic flyer to cassette was as comfortable as possible. He had witnessed instances where, upon knocking and not receiving an answer, he had gone into Soundwave's quarters only to find the mech recharging on the floor, due to the fact that all of his cassettes had abandoned their own recharge berths in favour of sleeping in _his. _

Why did Soundwave put up with such nonsense?

Which brought Barricade to his conclusion: Soundwave. Was. Soft.

In terms of give-and-take, Soundwave was giving far more than he was receiving. It just wasn't logical.

But Barricade let it go. Soundwave was still a very effective officer, for all his faults, and the cassettes were useful in their own ways. As long as it didn't hinder their progress, whatever Soundwave did in his personal time and whatever Soundwave chose to do with his unit and whatever did with the squishy was none of Barricade's concern.

**Present**

Bumblebee and Mikaela could only watch helplessly as Sam ran away from them. They tried to fight off the drones, but they didn't want to hurt Sam. They didn't know what would happen if they were to destroy the drones and sever the connection.

The puppets, without their puppeteer, eventually shut down and fell to the ground. They felt numb as, one by one, the drones fell around them, their optics dimming,

"_Bumblebee?" _Blaster's frequencies finally made it through the haze. Bumblebee made the connection immediately.

"_We lost him!" _Bumblebee burst out, on the verge of hysterics. Mikaela's frequencies, still young and unused to this method of communication, were less clear in sentiment but equal in surprise and grief.

Blaster's frequencies changed almost immediately, sending out a pattern to their processors that Bumblebee hadn't felt him use towards anyone except a newly-sparked Rewind and Eject. "_It's okay," _Blaster reassured, though they all knew that the situation was far from "okay." "_I can still feel him. He's still moving __**away **__from the Decepticon base. He's scared and confused and probably in shock, but you haven't lost him."_

"_Are his frequencies back to normal?" _Bumblebee asked desperately. There was still hope. Somewhere buried inside Sonar was Sam, he just knew it…

"_They haven't changed," _Blaster said slowly. _"Perhaps it will take awhile for the effects to take." _

Mikaela gave a frustrated cry. _"Well, what do we do now?" _she asked, sending the message clumsily. Blaster still understood her anyway.

"_You have to find him. Our trick won't last; Soundwave may look deeper into Sam's frequencies and find something wrong. Sam can't send information to him, but he can still send out emotions. The halo makes Soundwave sense…repeated patterns. Like a video feedback loop. But it won't trick him for long, and he will come running."_

"Okay," Mikaela sent aloud, and Bumblebee straightened, donning on his mask to protect his optics from the shearing winds. Together, they stepped out into the snow.

They hadn't come this far just to lose him now.

They had to face the brutal truth: that there would be no fairytale bubblegum ending full of sunshine and happiness and rainbows. It was as if fate was sneering at them, asking them how they could be so foolish. Sam had spent years as a Decepticon, and all that was not going to hand-waved in a single instant. How could they be so naïve to think otherwise?

They would have Sam back with them.

They'd just have to find him and calm him down before any of the Decepticons found him first.

**X x X**

He stumbled out into the snow, clawing at the halo at his temple. He wanted Soundwave. He wanted Ravage. He wanted…he wanted the silence to be gone.

For as long as he could remember, there had always been a song in his head. Frequencies that connected him with Soundwave and with his co-creations. But where the song was before, now there was…there was nothing. Just an agonizing quiet.

His fingers clumsily reached for the halo, and he had the sudden urge to puke when he found that, as hard as he tried, the damn thing wasn't coming off.

What had that femme done to him?!

His frequencies attempted to stretch out to their normal range now, only to be met with what he could only describe as a wall of glass. He could _feel _Soundwave's frequencies…they were so close, just on the other side of the glass…

"Sam," he croaked out, carefully pronouncing the human name in a human tongue, and he caught himself by surprise. That name. It was a human name. It shouldn't mean anything to him.

"_Sam! Please, wait, Sam!" _the femme's pleas echoed in his mind. Suddenly, the voices from Out There began to push against his walls, and Soundwave…where was Soundwave?

It was so quiet, and he could only hear the voices and the voices of the mech and the femme calling him someone he wasn't.

He wanted to go back. He wanted to run away. He wanted to be with the mech and the femme but he didn't and he was scared and confused and what were all these images and what…

_Sam, why are you so pale__? Are you sick, Sam? I'm really worried. I'm sorry; I don't mean to be hovering, but organics are just so slagging fragile…I didn't mean it that way, Sam, please don't be angry with me, you know I love you…_

_I'm sorry, Sam, we can't be together anymore; it's not safe for you. No, I'm not angry at you, Sam, don't be silly; this isn't your fault. I just need some time to think; you know you'll always be my one and only. Please try to understand, Sam, I'll always love you… _

_Sam, where are you going? __We're worried. You're out all times of the night and you don't tell us why. Sam, you're not sleeping well; please don't try to pretend, we know you're not in your room when you say you are. What's wrong Sam? You know you can tell us anything. You're our son and we love you…_

_Please__, Sam? _

"I'm not Sam!" he yelled frantically, though there was no one around to hear him. _Soundwave, Ravage, Barricade, anyone…someone help me!_

But no one was listening to him, because no one could hear him, and things were getting so much worse, and the voices were getting louder and jumbling together and he was getting strange frequencies, strange glimpses and he couldn't make any meaning of them and…and then he realized it: this was the virus.

Did the virus always feel this bad? He couldn't remember—the virus cleanse always spared him from remembering. Had he actually _wanted _these memories? It felt his mind was being sent through a grater. He hurt everywhere and nowhere—it was all in his head. It felt like his heart was being dug out with a spoon, and there was so much quiet and so much noise and all those voices…

He was Sam, wasn't he?

He was Sam, only son of Ron and Judy Witwicky, an ordinary teenage boy pushed to extraordinary circumstances. His best friends consisted of cars and trucks and monkey wannabees and he wanted to get married to a motorcycle and he'd do anything to get Bumblebee and Mikaela to smile…

But that couldn't be right, because he was Sonar, youngest creation of Soundwave, and filled with so many viruses and glitches that he often despaired of his own functionality. His co-creations were his family and the New-cons were his pack-mates and his greatest fear was disappointing Soundwave…

_Sam—Sonar—Sam__—Sonar—Sam—Sonar…_

The two names repeated over and over in his mind until they didn't mean anything to him anymore. It was just him, out there, in the snow, and to his horror he felt a strange liquid running down his cheeks, coming out of his primary visual receptors. He was cold, and wet, and scared, and miserable, and all he could do was to keep going, stumbling and falling, shivering and crying, weakly beating against the glass walls in his mind.

And he cried because of the cold, because of the silence, because of the confusion, but most of all he cried because he knew that, for reasons beyond his understanding, that for that mech and for that femme, he wanted to be Sam.

**X x X**

Ravage wasn't sure whether or not their raid was going successfully. All she knew was that things were going flawlessly on her end.

There was a little pause in between as the Autobots tried to regroup. They were so small in number that they had brought out their younglings with them. Ravage could see them, hiding behind the bulk of the Autobot forces.

They hadn't known exactly where the new Autobots came from. Word on the Decepticon grapevine was that the Autobots used the final strength of the Allspark to ensure the propagation of their own programming, to ensure an Autobot future.

She scoffed. If they thought that the Decepticons would merely fade away, the Autobots had a whole other thing coming.

Grudgingly, though, she did feel some sympathy towards the new Autobots. She, at least, had had choice. She had experienced being an Autobot and being a Decepticon, and she liked the Decepticon side more. She chose to be here; they did not.

Speaking of younglings, though…

She didn't catch herself before she had done the unforgivable: checking on her youngest brother during a mission. She cursed herself; where was the professionalism in that? She prided herself on her drive and on her focus, both things her Autobot counterpart sorely lacked.

Still, she allowed herself to feel satisfaction, which was strangely laced with sadness, when she observed that her brother's frequencies went unchanged. He was focused on his own mission, as he was supposed to be.

All mechlings grew up. Still, this was so soon…

She surprised herself with that strangely sentimental, illogical thought. This was a good thing, wasn't it? How was he supposed to grow to be a technopath of his own right if she expected him to cling to her the whole time?

She would talk to Soundwave about it later. It could be a virus.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

**Author note: **FINALLY got over the writer's block…hopefully things will get smoother now and this thing will be done _before _the TF2 premier…

* * *

Becoming

**10 **

**Past**

Blaster looked out into the darkness of Cybertron, hands pressed against the invisible force field that surrounded the spire upon which their home was built. Adjusting his optics, he could see the red veins of Cybertron's molten blood glowing against the dark metal grounds down below. He hoped that Jingles was okay; the Allspark, it was rumoured, had been behaving oddly lately, and the whole of Cybertron was affected. The grounds were more unstable than ever, so that even mechs who lived on the highest towers could feel the tremors. Emergency workers were busier and were taking greater risks than ever in Cybertron's long history.

Or so he was told. Blaster had only been sparked a few orns ago; many things were still a mystery to him.

_Beautiful, is it not? _a voice said, whispering in his processor.

"S-Soundwave," he stammered, and upon his older co-creation's disapproving silence, he switched to his frequencies. _I didn't know you were still awake. _

He would never say it aloud, but Blaster far preferred the company of his other half co-creation. Jazz was an open and friendly mech, always ready with a joke or a smile, and was very good with the newly-sparked. Blaster never felt awkward around him. But Blaster was a technopath, and thus had to spend the majority of his time with his technopathic co-creation to better learn the art. That was Wavelength and Ultrasound's reasoning, anyway. Jingles had been disapproving of that. There were many things that Wavelength and Ultrasound neglected to tell him when they undertook this joint project together, it seemed.

Soundwave, in contrast, was an aloof mech. Not outright cruel or condescending, but…Blaster always felt that Soundwave always had a sense of sardonic amusement about him, and Blaster couldn't tell if his older co-creation was truly amused or was just having a little joke at everyone else's expense.

Plus, he felt a nagging sense of inferiority when around him. Wavelength and Ultrasound weren't helping much; it seemed that they wanted him to be a replicate of his older, "perfect" co-creation.

Just a few orns old, and he already despaired of ever gaining his primary creators' love.

_Obsidian was restless, _Soundwave said in response to his statement. He bent down so that said cassette could jump out of his arms and onto the ground. Obsidian immediately went up to Blaster, rubbing against him. He picked her up, cradling her somewhat awkwardly.

It took a lot of energy and skill to be able to link to cassettes, and only the best of the best made such bonds. And Soundwave, even at such a young age (he was only a few vorns old) was the best of the best.

_She likes you, _Soundwave said, and Blaster found a little bit of himself delighted at the recognition.

_You're really good, _Blaster said almost enviously, stroking a half-recharging Obsidian behind her audios. _How do you do it?_

Soundwave regarded his days-old co-creation, and then said, _I cannot tell you, little one. It is something that every technopath must find for himself. _

Soundwave had seemed so kind during his early orns of life. Blaster would realize later what a blind little fool he had been.

He should have noticed the signs. How Soundwave was particularly interested in technopathic beings from other planets. How Soundwave was obsessed more about the nature of the body casing and the processor than of the spark. How Soundwave was disapproving of anything his cassettes did that was not related to a mission or purpose. How Soundwave seemed to…to gloat whenever others commented in concern how unnecessarily armed Obsidian was, as though having himself a private joke.

It yet it wasn't until Soundwave attempted to reformat Steeljaw did Blaster realize just how depraved his co-creation was.

After he and Soundwave went their separate ways, Blaster realized that he and Soundwave didn't have the same answer to that question he asked so long ago, because the answer that Blaster found was to love his cassettes, completely and unconditionally.

Soundwave just loved his cassettes' functionality.

**Present**

Blaster knew that something had gone wrong almost immediately after Sam awoke. Some of the frequencies gained a more lively rhythm, while others remained at a steady, slow tune, indicating that the boy was somewhat conscious but still mostly asleep.

And yet…they did not change. His frequencies did not change.

Granted, he had never met Sam as a full human, so he would not recognize Sam's original frequencies even if they hit him at full volume. But still…his frequencies were still those of the superficial Sonar persona.

Fear clenched at his spark. Were they too late? The longer the younglings stayed reprogrammed, the higher was the chance that they would never be able to cure them. The stunned youngling frequencies would grow into the superficial persona, and though the superficial programming would one day fade away, the youngling would have then embraced the reprogrammed being, their frequencies would have moulded and solidified to that of the superficial persona—they would have become someone they were not. Sam was just over a vorn old—he should still be young enough to be cured…

But noting the sheer joy in Bumblebee and Mikaela's frequencies assured him, even for that one moment, that things were going to go right.

The agony that reverberated in their frequencies less than a breem later all but confirmed his suspicions.

He half-rose in his seat, his body in the Autobot base but his mind with Bumblebee and Mikaela…and Sam. Concerned, his cassettes gathered about him.

The poor thing was so afraid.

He felt extremely guilty as Sam's frequencies futilely and desperately clawed at the barrier that the halo placed around his mind. The young one was _petrified, _searching for what he thought to be his creator. But what could Blaster have done? If the halo were not there, Sam would have mistakenly alerted Soundwave, all but eliminating any chance at rescue.

He waited until Sam's frequencies were calm enough to allow him to approach, and then his frequencies slowly began to envelope Sam's, tentatively so as to not panic him. He just wanted him to know that he didn't mean to hurt him…that he was a friend.

The youngling responded so strongly that at first Blaster thought he was pushing him away. He was surprised by the force with which the youngling clung to him. He cradled him somewhat awkwardly, unused to these strange frequencies. Sam said something then, and Blaster realized that he was probably looking for Soundwave. He motioned his cassettes back, and they kept their frequencies in check. He could probably stall Sam long enough, but his cassettes' frequencies were too different from those of Soundwave's cassettes.

Blaster remained silent, hoping to distract Sam long enough for Bumblebee and Mikaela to find him and calm him down. But it seemed to eventually dawn on the youngling that whoever was holding him was not Soundwave.

Then his frequencies went ballistic.

They began to thrash violently, and Blaster was forced to release him. He could feel the youngling once again try and break the barrier, and he could only stand back, waiting until he was too exhausted to fight anymore.

Why did doing the right thing have to feel so wrong?

Blaster felt useless there, in the control room of the Ark.

"Blaster? What's happening?" Rewind asked, and he attempted to poke at Sam's strange frequencies with his own, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Blaster pulled him away gently, and they all looked up at him. He wasn't smiling, wasn't joking; he wasn't even answering. Ramhorn pawed the ground nervously; Steeljaw began growling. Rewind and Eject looked at each other uneasily.

"Time to play hero?" Steeljaw asked grimly.

Blaster nodded. "Time to play hero."

Unbeknownst to them, Prowl watched as they quietly geared up and left, his optics dim and his faceplate expressionless.

**Past **

All he wanted was for Prowl to love him.

For as long as he could remember, it was just him and Prowl, with a little Jazz on the side. Their creators, like many creators of glitched younglings, had abandoned them, leaving them in the mid-spires, just a step higher than the volatile grounds.

Prowl was his guardian, his protector, his healer…his brother.

When he had been taken by the Decepticons, he had been so afraid. They had taken many things from him—they had rebuilt his form, changed his programming, deleted many of his memories…but his memories of Prowl still remained. It took a lot to dig them out, but he was strong enough to do it. He was in a different form, with different programming, and imperfect memories…but he was still Prowl's brother, wasn't he?

He had tricked the Decepticons then. He had worked so hard to gain their trust, so that he could see the outside world. But then…he realized then that being taken was the best thing that had happened to him. His old programming was stunting him, blinding him, forcing him to be someone that he wasn't. Forcing him to be weak. His spark felt comfortable in these new metal and wires. He was more of himself than he ever was before.

He wanted his brother to see him, to be proud of him…to join him. He wanted to free his brother, too, because he loved him that much.

But then the Autobot had to look down at him, his optics bright with grief and incredulity, and told him, "You're not my brother."

He tried to get him to see; he tried to get him to love him. But each and every time, Prowl had told him: "You're not my brother."

After awhile, he began to believe it.

He threw himself to his work, dedicated himself to the Decepticons, started rising in the ranks. So what if Prowl hated him? He didn't care; Prowl was nothing to him. Just to prove it, he even went out of his way to hurt those that Prowl loved, to mock him, to be everything that his precious little brother would never be.

Because he meant nothing to Prowl. Because Prowl's precious younger co-creation was gone, gone, gone, and they were both trying their hardest to prove it.

But no matter what, he still wanted Prowl to love him.

And Barricade hated him for it.

**Present**

He was shaking. His frequencies were trembling, his whole body was shaking, and none of Ravage's tricks helped him to be still. Someone had almost grabbed him. He'd escaped, but he could still feel whoever it was. He was trapped with him, on this side of the glass wall, and he was just waiting for him to be too exhausted to fight back.

He was in the deep end of the psychic pond now, and he still didn't quite know how to swim. The song was still gone, but as if the quiet was not bad enough, thoughts not his own…or maybe thoughts that _were _his own but he couldn't remember ever thinking them…thoughts and whispers and the screams—oh, the screams—began to drown him, and he stopped many times, trying to sort them out as best he could before he lost his sense of self.

_Who am I? _

Of course, it could have been too late. Above the noise, the two names repeated over and over in his head, a pervasive whisper that somehow were louder than any of the alien thoughts. They blended with each other, until they became the same, until they were both meaningless.

_Who am I? _

Mikaela and Bumblebee…they were his soul mates, weren't they? Not one complete without the others, whatever they had inside them reverberating with one another in harmony.

But Ravage and Ratbat and Rewind and Eject and Lazerbeak…they were his pack-mates, weren't they? Made from the same spark-stuff that sparks were made of.

Optimus Prime…he was his leader, wasn't he? Leader, father-figure, friend. He'd follow Prime to the ends of the earth and beyond because the leader was so kind, compassionate, courageous, and just plain _awesome. _

But that couldn't be right, because he had never even seen the mech who was such a subject of fear amongst the New-cons. Soundwave had been his first sight in this strange world; it was Soundwave who was his creator, his teacher, his protector.

He was an honourary Autobot, but that couldn't be right, because he was just shy of earning his Decepticon symbol.

He couldn't understand it. Sonar and Sam; Sam and Sonar.

_I am._

_I am not._

_I am._

_I am not._

_I am who I am not. _

_Who am I? _

He stumbled along, unsure of where he was going, but feeling a pressing need to be somewhere…anywhere but here. He needed to be away. Away from the Autobots, away from the Decepticons, away from his soul mates and his pack-mates and his friends and his enemies though the line was swiftly blurring between them, and like his name the designations of "friend" and "enemy" were swiftly eluding him.

Whispers and screams beckoned to him, pulling him along like an unwilling puppet.

**X x X**

They were returning to base with a bittersweet victory.

When there was luxury to, Ravage checked up on her sibling. Sonar still seemed fine. She sent a pulse out, telling him that they were returning.

Strange; his frequencies made no change. It was as though he hadn't heard her. He couldn't communicate technopathically, but he could still pick up emotions and respond to them likewise. There should be no reason as to why he wasn't reacting.

She tried again. Still the same.

Concerned, but not yet alarmed, she checked his location.

He was still in the exact same place he was last time.

That was not right. Not right at all.

She looked up at Soundwave, could feel him trying to contact his youngest.

Nothing happened. There was no answering voice, no babble of apology…his frequencies didn't even change.

"Soundwave? What's happening?" Ratbat asked, attempting to poke at Sonar's strangely behaving frequencies with his own. Concern deepened into just short of horror when the cassettes realized that they couldn't make a connection.

Soundwave pulled him away gently, and they all looked up at him. He didn't look anxious, didn't look afraid, didn't know like he knew what was going on, and that scared them. He wasn't even answering. Lazerbeak and Ratbat shifted from foot to foot nervously; Ravage began growling; Frenzy and Rumble looked at each other uneasily.

They began to quicken their pace.

_Stockade, _Soundwave said, tapping into the frequencies of one of the more advanced New-cons. It was an open channel; the New-cons shared a communication line established by their connection to Sonar, their frequencies still too underdeveloped.

_Yes, Soundwave? _

_Report location of Sonar. _

_I don't know, _was the surprised answer_. The last time I saw him, he was still inside the base. _

A high-pitched giggle reverberated down the line.

_Do you have something to contribute, Candy? _Soundwave asked.

_I saw Sonar outside, _was the answer, said in a sing-song voice. Soundwave momentarily cut the line from his cassettes before they could snap at the tiny New-con.

_Patience, _he told them firmly as they made sounds of general discontent. He turned his attention back to Candy. _Really?_

_He was within borders, _Candy assured them, almost guiltily. All the New-cons knew where Sonar was and was not allowed to go. Soundwave sent a pulse of assurance down the line.

_You're not getting him into trouble, _he said. _We just need to know where he is. _

_He was heading east, _Candy said, still using the human terms for direction. Then guilt gave way to amusement. _He was with a femme. _

_Which femme? _

_Dunno. We thought she was new. She was all white, smaller than Strika, bigger than Duel. _Candy sent them a snippet of memory, and they took a look at the mystery femme, barely seen through the snow. Candy gave another giggle. _Sonar seemed to be having a good time. _

Ravage's optics narrowed. No New-con or Decepticon matched the description, and yet…

It hit them at the same time: they had seen that femme before, on the battlefield…fighting on the side of the Autobots.

The New-cons caught onto their mounting emotions. Choruses of why and what's happening and is something wrong became a white noise to them. Soundwave gave the New-cons absent reassurances that they doubtless did not believe before dropping the line.

_Ravage, _he said, and she nodded, already surging ahead.

She swore, if any Autobot made a single scratch on him, she would tear them apart!


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

* * *

Becoming

**11**

**P****resent**

The snowfall had slacked off, and they were faced only with barren rock. Hours had passed since they had last seen Sam, and they couldn't find him. Blaster and his cassettes had shown up shortly after they had lost him, being careful to mask their frequencies as they neared Decepticon territory. But even with his help, tracking down Sam was difficult. Whatever was going on in Sam's mind was worsening, and his frequencies seemed to be coming everywhere at once. Blaster simply couldn't pinpoint his location.

They retraced their path along towards the Decepticon base, thinking that he must have retreated there.

The situation worsened when, suddenly, Blaster doubled over, optics shuttering and hands to his temple. His cassettes crowded him, their combined questions and worries overriding the individual words.

"Blaster? Are you okay?" Bumblebee asked, nearing his comrade.

The way Blaster looked when he turned towards Bumblebee…that look would haunt the scout for vorns to come. With his optics a faded white-blue, the communications mech whispered, "He knows."

It only took an astrosecond of confusion before all of them realized who Blaster was talking about. Bumblebee's spark skipped a pulse.

Time was against their side, now. Soundwave knew that his precious project had gone missing.

They had to find him.

But they had been looking for Sam with the question of where Sonar would go. They never asked where Sam would go, and as soon as that realization hit them, they knew where he was.

They just hoped they could get there in time.

**Past **

Sometimes, Mikaela thought that she and Sam must have loved each other in a selfish way.

Well, no. Not really. Selfish love wasn't really love at all. But sometimes she wondered if she and Sam got together for less than pure reasons. Maybe, to Sam, she was a charity case that he couldn't bring himself to abandon. Maybe, to her, Sam was the last remnant of her human life that she was too scared to let go of.

Once she almost told him of her fears, but he knew what she was getting at even before she said it.

"Don't say that," he told her, eyes hard. "Don't you ever say that."

Sam was a good guy. He was a nice, dorky boy-next-door who had an unexpected spine of steel in him. He felt too much and showed it, too, and he was easily flustered, frustrated, and embarrassed. But you had to push a lot of buttons to get him truly angry.

That was the only time she could remember when he had been angry at her, and though she could scarcely feel it, she knew that his grip tightened on her hand that had, even without the upgrades, already dwarfed his.

He had brushed his fingers against her temple, mimicking the motions that he used to do when she had been in a human body and he had brushed the hair from her eyes. His eyes turned soft again, and he smiled that strange, strained smile.

They didn't tell each other that they loved each other then. There was no need to.

No matter what it was in the beginning, it was love in the end. For them, that was enough.

He stayed with her through everything. He was there when the horrifying changes started happening to her. He was there, holding her hand, when Ratchet told her exactly what had happened, what was inside her, and what would need to be done. He was with her when disguised government agents lied to her father while she said good-bye from a distance. He was with her through New-bot "physiotherapy," through training sessions, through mission simulations…He was always with her.

And then, one day, he was gone, somehow taken from the very heart of the Autobot base.

She wanted to be gone, too.

She wouldn't realize until later how horrified the Autobots must have been. The loss of a precious friend had shocked them badly, and now they were forced to watch her wither away. They tried their best to help her, but in the end, the decision was hers…as it always had been.

She went away for awhile, deciding to continue her training with Elita-1's squad. The Autobots who had essentially raised her let her go, deciding that she could use the change and the space and the…the time.

Defeat was uncharacteristic of Miss Mikaela Banes, and she was still Mikaela, no matter what had happened. Optimus, and Bumblebee, and Sam…they had all helped her to see that. Somehow, she picked up the pieces, just taking it day by day, step by step. She had to let go. She had to grow up.

She would fight, she would live.

For Sam, for Bumblebee, for herself.

**Present**

He didn't know how long he had been walking. It must have been quite some time—an orn, maybe more, because he found himself at the outskirts of a human city, and he knew that this particular city was unnervingly close to the Autobot base. The thought of the Autobots being so close and Soundwave being so far away and out of contact sent him trembling, but even though fear and panic had slowly given way to fatigue, he could not stop. He was being controlled by a force greater than himself. It wasn't until he had reached his destination that the voices in his head quieted and that—

_Hey Sam! There's my boy!_

_Mommy missed you, Sammy. _

_--_that he could look down where he had been unwillingly dragged.

He had left his helmet somewhere—maybe back at the cave with the strange femme, he couldn't quite remember. But now, not only could he easily see that he was in human burial ground, but he could also see the names on each tombstone, faded with the passage of time.

And in front of him was a cluster of three tombstones. The one on the left read "Judy Witwicky," the right bore the name of "Ronald Witwicky." All his fears, all his worries, all his questions about the femme whose name he knew was Mikaela and the Autobot whose name he knew was Bumblebee although he didn't know _why _he knew that—it all went away, replaced by sheer horror. He felt his eyes widen in disbelief, felt tears stinging his face and clouding his vision, felt himself numb to anything but the grief welling deep inside him, and he did not know why.

And the _pain. _

He was hurting worse than when he was first upgraded, his implants burning into him, dulled only by the soft reassurances that he would realize later came from Soundwave and from his siblings. But this was different, because there was so much pain on the _inside, _and nothing would make it go away. It burned and twisted until he wanted to scream, to howl to the skies, and it was all because those two humans in the ground were gone from him.

They'd never laugh with him again, never scold him again, never hug him, never worry about him, never hold him.

Had they ever? He didn't know these two humans, did he?

But if he didn't, then why did he hurt so?

They were gone to wherever humans went when their time came.

Gone, gone, gone.

And his gaze strayed to the gravestone in the centre, where the name "Samuel Witwicky" was chiseled into the stone. He sank to his knees, just staring at the little human family, acutely aware that he had lost something very important, but, like many things, he still didn't know what.

"Why do you matter to me?" he whispered to the long-gone humans, still speaking in that strange human language that was, at the same time, alien and familiar.

He felt very tired, then. He just wanted to lie there, hidden in the snow and in the shadows, until the world forgot him and he could be with them again.

**Past **

They came slowly, sometimes in twos, sometimes in threes, sometimes more. They rarely ever came alone. Even before they had found their guardians, they found each other first. Something in each of them—perhaps their frequencies, perhaps their spark-pulse, perhaps something else—craved each other's company. And Sonar, apparently, sent out the strongest signals. That's how they found the rest of their family, by answering to Sonar's broadcasts, by following the signals. They didn't understand why the older Decepticons were very solitary at times. Sure, each New-con had an own "territory," but not to the extent of their elders.

Perhaps it was all part of growing up. Perhaps it was just something in their design or in their programming.

They sensed that their elders disapproved of their groupings. Sonar, a little better at reading frequencies due to an early training, could easily read the less than happy emotions coming off their watchers. A warrior who could not live alone could not fight alone.

One day, the Nokiacons Eeny, Meeny, Miney and Mo were scurrying along the shafts of the base and overheard a conversation between two elder Decepticons.

"Look at them, always crowding together. They scream like the Pit if we try to separate them. If Lord Megatron were here—"

"Mute it! Lord Starscream is leader now. You know those seekers. Trine mechs, through and through. Of course he's going to encourage this."

At the time, none of them could make any sense of this conversation. In any case, what was viewed as a childish behaviour was tolerated.

And as they grew older, they only grew closer. But that didn't stop competition. Each of them trained every day, flaunted their limited talents and skills, hoping to be good enough to catch the optic of an elder and to be adopted.

None of them had creators. None of them had a creator to show them the way, to show them how to fight and how to survive.

None of them, save for Sonar.

The other New-cons were slightly jealous of the technopath and his cassette co-creations. As one of the highest-ranking and therefore as one of the strongest officers, many of the New-cons wanted Soundwave as an adopted creator. But it seemed as though the communications officer was quite content with his current number.

"So," Blitz said conversationally one day, attempting to corner and catch the smaller New-con. Around them, the other New-cons watched, some in interest, some in boredom. "What's he like?"

"Who?" Sonar asked distractedly as Blitz lunged and he ducked, scrambling out of the way. They turned to face one another again.

"Soundwave. Your creator." A feint to the left, another lunge, and Sonar was too slow. He found himself pinned to the ground by his pack-mate, smirking faceplate inches away from his own. His sensors were going ballistic, almost blinding his eyes from behind the mask.

His frequencies scrambled, got a hold of a channel that Blitz had unknowingly left vulnerable, and twisted. The larger and heavier New-con howled in pain, scrambled off of him, and Sonar leaped to his feet.

Blitz's frequencies writhed and flailed and went out of Sonar's grip. The mental shields came down immediately. Blitz wouldn't be making the same mistake.

The question actually surprised Sonar. "What's he like?" he repeated slowly. "Umm…"

What could he say? Soundwave was his creator, his whole world. He'd do anything for him.

What was he like? He had heard his creator been described as dangerous when angered, although Sonar wasn't any judge of that. Soundwave always seemed so controlled to him, so calm and so rational, a mech of peace in times of carnage. He was someone stable to hold on to. He was secretive, perhaps. Sonar always did have a feeling that Soundwave wasn't telling him everything when he asked a question. But he was still very young, not more than half a vorn old. Maybe Soundwave thought that he wouldn't be able to understand the answers yet.

The New-cons described him as powerful, but that was hardly a fair description. Sonar knew that 'powerful' had barely begun to describe him. Besides, the description wouldn't satisfy Blitz anyway. The New-cons viewed a lot of the elder Decepticons as powerful.

What was he like? Sonar couldn't quite answer that question.

Blitz barreled towards him, and Sonar scrambled out of the way, formulating an answer as Blitz regained control of his momentum and balance. It was a dumb thing to do; any other New-con would have taken advantage of the momentary weakness. But the question engrossed the technopath until the scuffle became a secondary matter.

Sonar knew the world in emotions. Knew the puppy-like admiration that the New-cons (including himself) felt towards the older Decepticons, knew the chaotic thoughts that emanated from Barricade, knew the sly triumph that came from Lord Starscream, knew the….the….

He couldn't name it, what Soundwave felt towards him. He just knew that it was there, and, more importantly, he knew how Soundwave made him feel.

"He's my creator," he finally said lamely. But instead of mocking his less-than-elegant answer, Blitz just nodded before catching Sonar off-guard, trapping him in a bear-hug.

Sonar squirmed, frequencies thrashing, and Blitz's grip tightened painfully. Grudgingly, he admitted defeat to his older pack-mate.

Grinning smugly, Blitz put him down, patting his head patronizingly.

But his thoughts were still on the conversation.

"That's all anyone wants," Blitz said quietly, almost to himself. Around them, the other New-cons listened to this exchange with interest, and Sonar could vaguely sense a strange and uncomfortable feeling deep inside them surface for just that moment.

They just wanted their creator. They just wanted to be together.

They just wanted to be loved.

Sadly, none of them would realize this for many vorns to come.

**Present **

Bumblebee and Mikaela's suspicions were right. As they neared the graveyard, his signals became stronger, overriding all the other false leads in Blaster's in-built radar.

"I better go in first," he said, motioning to Bumblebee and Mikaela. He spoke through their protests. "It'd be best if a mech who didn't know him…if a mech who isn't in his memories talks to him. That way, he won't have another one of those episodes as you've described." Stiffly, reluctantly, they nodded.

They'd do anything at this point. They were so close now, yet still so far away.

They just wanted their friend back.

Blaster and his cassettes entered the graveyard, whispering fervent apologies to those who slumbered as they carefully made their way to where the signal was strongest.

Blaster found him, lying atop a grave. The cassettes looked at each other uneasily.

Sam was awake, but did not react to Blaster's presence. His frequencies were placid, almost calm now, starkly contrasting the violent panic that had overridden them before. Carefully, very, very carefully, Blaster enveloped the smaller being's frequencies with his own in what he hoped was a comforting way.

Still no response. Sam wasn't clinging to him, as he did when he had mistaken him for Soundwave, but neither did he push him away. He was just very…passive, as if he'd just stopped caring about…well, about everything.

Blaster tried the less invasive, verbal method. "Sam?"

"Who were they?"

Blaster's optics shuttered at the unexpected response. "Who, Sam?"

"Them." He raised an arm, feebly gesturing towards the gravestone on the left, and then on the right. Blaster zoomed his viewscreens, and felt his spark give a strange pulse when he recognized the names.

Sam was lying atop his own grave.

There was a pause, and Blaster gently said, "They were your parents, kid."

"Parents?" He said the word like it was alien to him. After all this time and after all that had happened, it might as well have been.

"Yeah. Your creators."

"Soundwave…" Blaster forced his frequencies to be still, to not show his true feelings of shock and revulsion when Sam had said that name. How was he ever going to explain to Sam what Soundwave had done to him, or, more importantly, _why _he had done it? He couldn't face the truth himself. Thankfully, Sam moved the conversation to a different subject. Maybe he couldn't deal with it either.

"Were they happy?"

"Blaster," Ramhorn hissed, pawing the ground nervously. They all knew that Soundwave was coming. They didn't have time to indulge in these questions. The smart thing to do was to grab the kid and go.

But Blaster couldn't bring himself to be that heartless.

"They were strong," he said finally, knowing that it wasn't much of an answer. How could he answer that? The family members of the New-bots were lied to, in order to keep them safe. But Sam was still physically human, and thus not under Autobot custody in the same way that the New-bots were. Ron and Judy Witwicky were one of the few human civilians who regularly contacted the Autobots, even after Sam had vanished. They wanted to make sure that no other parent had to bear their pain. He couldn't remember Ron and Judy being happy. How could they, when they were convinced that they had outlived their son? Whenever Blaster remembered them, he remembered a haunted look in their features that Blaster recognized all too well. Time didn't heal; it just made you better at hiding the scars.

He should know. Every Autobot, including himself, was living proof.

"Did they love me?"

"With all their being."

He got up very, very slowly, gaze still cast towards the ground. Blaster saw that his eyes were damp, tears glistening on silver implants. Sam probably didn't even realize that he was crying. He probably didn't even know he could.

"Does Soundwave love me?"

He asked it in a small, almost desperate voice, and he sounded so pitiful that Blaster's instinct was to tell an outrageous lie and say, _Of course he loves you. _But he held that urge in check. Sam had been starved so long of the truth; he wasn't about to make things worse by encouraging Sam's misplaced devotion to the twisted mech.

But telling the truth now would just about shatter him. He couldn't handle that yet.

"Come home with us, Sam," Blaster said instead, bending down and reaching out coaxingly. "It'll all be better soon."

Sam blinked, and then finally turned to stare at him, as though coming out of a trance. He hesitated, and his frequencies felt unsure and stiff in Blaster's embrace, and he feared that he would bolt again. Soundwave had probably taught him to hate all Autobots in general, and Blaster in particular. If not Soundwave, than the cassettes would have educated him thusly.

Behind him, he could feel his own cassettes tense, preparing themselves for a chase. They didn't want to hurt him, but letting Soundwave get him back would be worse for him than a few bruises.

"Okay," he said, getting up slowly, and the cassettes backed down, surprised. As though he had been doing it ever since he was changed, Sam climbed into Blaster's hand, and let the communications mech take him to the two people who had missed him so badly that it hurt.

**X x X**

They couldn't find him. The signals were scrambled, either through Sonar's own panic or through some Autobot mechanism, and the result was that Sonar's frequencies seemed to be coming in from random directions. They painstakingly inspected each channel, trying to find which frequencies were real and which were merely echoes and echoes of echoes, forced to pause every so often to get their bearings.

Sonar still wasn't responding to them.

None of them ever let the thought of what the Autobots would do to their brother consume them. That would never happen. They wouldn't _let _it happen.

Each passing day, each passing hour only made them more desperate.

_Glitching little fragger, _Frenzy thought. _Once you get back over here and Soundwave puts you right again, I am going to kick your sorry ass! _

Inspecting one channel, Ratbat nearly ran into an all-too familiar frequency. Thankfully, Soundwave managed to pull him away before Blaster realized that he was being watched.

How strange. Even for a second-rate technopath, Blaster or his cassettes should still have sensed Ratbat there.

Which meant that they were all distracted by something…or someone.

Blaster was here, occupied and far away from the Autobot base where he usually hid.

And their brother was missing, and was in this general area.

They'd gouge out their own optics if it turned out to be a coincidence.

_Just hang on, we're coming. _


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

* * *

Becoming

**12**

**Past**

If there were such things as soul-mates, beings whose sparks were made of the same spark-stuff as one's own, then Sam and Mikaela were Bumblebee's; one was not complete without the other two. This was one of the truths that Bumblebee lived by, a constant that he believed in with all his being.

A mission at one of the humans' military outposts had gone awry. A surprise Decepticon attack had mangled Bumblebee's left leg, taking a huge chunk out of the wires. Bumblebee was in the med-bay at the moment, just staring at the ceiling, waiting for his programming to kick in and send him into standby. He was already patched up and ready to go, but Ratchet insisted on keeping him in the med-bay overnight, just in case. Sam and Mikaela had been worried, although he assured them that Ratchet was just being his overprotective self.

And speaking of Sam and Mikaela…

"I know you're there," he said, calling into the dark.

He heard a grumble, and then an exaggerated sigh. They appeared from the shadows, the soft light coming from Mikaela's optics and wires bathing both her and Sam in a soft glow. Sam gave Bumblebee a smile, and Mikaela did that thing with her optics and vocal unit that Bumblebee learned to interpret as a smile.

"You're not supposed to be here," he said amusedly, raising himself up on the bed. "Do you have any idea what Ratchet will do to the both of you?"

"Well he won't catch us now, will he?" Mikaela answered breezily.

"Oh, I don't know about that, Mikaela," Sam said in mock-concern. "I mean, the Hatchet is all-knowing and all-seeing, and his doctorly wrath knows no bounds…"

"Well then, Bumblebee," Mikaela said, with an air of finality, turning to him. "See how much we love you?"

"Besides, if he asks, we can always just blame you."

Bumblebee just shook his head. "You two have no idea how much you make me suffer."

Their grins just got wider.

They had seldom smiled these past few days. Mikaela had hit yet another setback in the form of her first virus. A mild one, thank goodness, but it did leave her weaponry outside of her control as the virus interrupted signals going from her processor to her in-built blasters. Ratchet was working on a patch, but until then, Mikaela was not to go outside the grounds, and her weapons were manually offlined for the time being.

At least it was just a mild virus.

And Sam had been…he didn't like the word, but Bumblebee would have thought that he was almost sick, lately. It was hard to get his attention sometimes, and sometimes he would even pause mid-sentence, blink and look back at them, wondering why they were staring at him. And, sometimes, he'd be humming a strange tune, as though listening to a song that only he could hear. Sometimes, he would get up in the middle of the night, sitting up in bed without waking, mumble something unintelligible before lying back down again.

Maybe it was just the stress.

And now Bumblebee had landed himself in the med-bay.

Oh, joy.

But he didn't think about all those at the moment. Jazz had the philosophy of taking life's troubles as you went, rolling with them instead of letting them roll over you. Bumblebee took that advice to spark. So Bumblebee just thought how beautiful they looked when they smiled. He cherished this moment, burning it into his memory chips.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked. Mikaela climbed onto the berth, stretching her hand towards Sam to pull him up. They both took a good look at him, their gazes lingering on his patched up leg.

"Better than okay," Bumblebee assured them. "I'm ready to get up and go—"

"But you can't," Sam said matter-of-factly.

"Ratchet threatened to weld you into the bed," Mikaela said. Upon Bumblebee's how-did-you-know-that expression, she said, "Will told me."

"His threats can't keep me here," he lied, trying in vain to regain some of his pride.

"But humiliation might," Sam said, and Bumblebee didn't quite like the all-too amused look in Sam's eyes. "You give Ratchet the slip, and me and Mikaela will spread around _those _pictures."

"You wouldn't."

"Try us."

"Okay, okay," Bumblebee said, his scowl marred by his amusement. "I'll be good."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"That's a good Bumblebee," Mikaela crooned. Bumblebee groaned, putting his faceplate into his hands.

"What did I ever do to deserve you two?"

"Love you, too, 'Bee," they chorused.

They sat with one another, the whole night through, whispering and stifling their laughter, Sam and Mikaela perched at the edge of the berth while Bumblebee hoped fervently that Ratchet wouldn't come in to check on his patient, all three of them fighting off drowsiness for the sake of being with one another just a little bit more.

On a logical level, they knew this couldn't last. Mikaela was growing and changing, and her programming would soon reach the point where she would have to train with other femmes—all stationed at another outpost—in order to better live in her new body. She would soon be leaving them. And Sam was a human, with human frailties and a human lifespan. He'd be leaving too. So even though they were soul-mates, even though their heartbeat and sparkpulse would always be in tune with one another, in the back of their minds, they were already preparing to say goodbye.

But on that night, in the whispers and the laughter, they felt as if it would last forever.

**Present**

As soon as he climbed into the mech's hand, as soon as he made physical contact and stopped fighting against him, he could feel outside frequencies strengthening, and then covering his, as though in a shield.

Soundwave...wouldn't be able to track his frequencies anymore.

He didn't know what to feel about that. He should have felt terrified, but instead, he felt…nothing. Terror, joy, excitement, dread…each and every single thing, all tied to what he was going towards, and what he was leaving behind.

He wondered if it was possible to feel so many different emotions that you no longer could feel anything.

He had felt Autobot frequencies before, whenever a scuffle occurred close enough to the base. The memories of them were enough to make him tremble. Such anger, such sorrow. A hatred that wasn't even directed at him. They had always frightened him, although Soundwave's firewalls had protected him from them.

But this mech's frequencies were different. They were slow, smooth, calming, though still with a distinctive beat. Trying to calm down the technopath, the mech's frequencies had settled into a pattern much like a gentle, slow song.

This mech who had came to him, seemingly out of nowhere, took him outside of the graveyard, and then went on, going farther from the human habitation. Then, he set him down. Those that had come with him—two bipedal cassettes and two quadruped cassettes—neared him, their movements slow and easy. He got the feeling that they were trying to ease him into something, and didn't want to shock him by doing a mass introduction.

One step at a time. That was how Soundwave had done it, too.

Soundwave...

The mech paused every so often, and he knew that he was searching for Soundwave's frequencies. "I think he's lost our trail," he muttered, and then gave Sam a tiny smile. "Sam," the mech said gently, and he neither accepted nor rejected the name. He still didn't know what to feel about that. "These are my cassettes: Eject, Rewind, Steeljaw, and Ramhorn." Eject and Rewind smiled, while Steeljaw and Ramhorn pawed at the ground fretfully.

He looked around at them, and then back at the mystery mech, finally understanding something about his...his captor? His saviour? His enemy? His friend? He didn't know anymore.

"You're Blaster," he said, finally feeling something close to terror before it died back down into his emotional haze_. _He was in the clutches of the mech that was almost never talked about, though he haunted Soundwave's frequencies. The mech who had caused Soundwave so much grief that his siblings cursed his existence. This was the mech that he had long feared, the mech that he'd been warned about multiple times. One part of him went willingly with this mech, while the other part screamed. He supposed that those parts came to a compromise and settled on feeling _numb. _

Blaster's tight, though gentle, smile faltered a little. "So you know about me already?"

"Yes," he said slowly, trying to gather his thoughts. It felt so hard—like trying to fight off sleep when you were just so very, very tired. Blaster's frequencies—so like and yet unlike Soundwave's—gave a comforting pulse, and he regained himself enough to say, "Soundwave...thinks highly of you."

Blaster looked at him ruefully. "I'm sure he does."

"You're his equal."

Blaster looked surprised. He continued, not knowing why he was saying this, but unable to stop. It felt important that Blaster knew. "That's why you are his rival. Because you are worthy."

He wasn't sure—he had only known Blaster for less than an hour—but Blaster's frequencies seemed to tremble. Steeljaw and Ramhorn went to his right and left sides, respectively, pressing against him. Even as an outsider, he could feel their frequencies comforting those of their creator.

Rewind and Eject each put a hand on his shoulders. "Maybe you should save that info for later, kid," Eject said softly.

He nodded. He was so tired...Tired of running, tired of being unsure, tired of this stupid virus that didn't seem to be a virus anymore. "I don't know why I'm saying this," his said.

"It's okay, Sam," Blaster said, composing himself as he once again turned his attention to him. "You're safe now. Things will start making sense...not right now, but soon. I'm not going to lie to you, Sam. This isn't going to be easy, and you're probably going to be confused for a good, long while. But we'll work on it together. I promise."

He couldn't think of anything to say to that, other than, "I believe you."

_But if you are telling the truth, then does that mean that Soundwave lied to me? _

He closed his eyes, leaning against Rewind, whose optics shuttered in surprise.

Soundwave was his creator. Ravage, Frenzy, Rumble, Lazerbeak, and Ratbat were his siblings. The New-cons were his packmates.

_All those nights that Soundwave spent awake with him, cradling his frequencies with his own, because the implants were burning into him and hurt so badly that he couldn't sleep._

_All times his siblings called him a virus-ridden glitch but protected him anyway, humouring him and checking for monsters under the bed when the frequencies got too much and he heard voices that weren't real._

_All those nights he had spent, tangled somewhere in a New-con heap, and no matter how many times they separated for the hunt, they'd always find their way back to each other._

All his memories...they couldn't all have been a lie, could they?

He felt guilty, being here and not fighting to get out and get back. Then he felt a surge of panic, and fought it back down.

He was going somewhere, somewhere he was supposed to be. But he was leaving somewhere he was supposed to be, too.

He couldn't be in two places at once.

He looked up again, and Blaster was looking down at him with a gentle, understanding expression. "Sam," he said gently. "You need to let go."

Desperately, he answered, "I can't."

"You'll learn."

"Will it ever stop?"

"It will. Eventually."

"Have you let go?"

Another pause, and Blaster's cassettes crowded around him again. "I think I did. But we'll work on it. Together."

"Sam?" a voice asked. They all turned it that direction, all of them relieved to be moving on, and he turned towards the speaker eagerly.

But the anticipation of what he was heading towards was almost overridden by the pain that came with what he was leaving behind. It felt like coming home, but also like leaving it.

Maybe it would all make sense tomorrow.

**Past**

If there were such things as soul-mates, beings whose sparks were made of the same spark-stuff as one's own, then they were each other's, and Soundwave was theirs; one still capable and deadly, but incomplete, without the others. And in these troubled times, their family was the only truth that they could rely on.

A mission at one of the humans' poor excuses for a military base had gone awry. They had been seen, and were driven from the computer lines before any data could be taken or any virus could be uploaded. Rumble and Lazerbeak had escaped unscathed, but Frenzy had been clipped in the shoulder, and an energon line had been cut. Though the other two could have doubtless make short work of the annoying insects in the base and could have completed the mission by themselves, they had fought their way out and exited quickly before Frenzy could leak out too much.

Frenzy was in the recovery chamber at the moment, grumbling. He was already patched up and ready to go, and he sorely wanted to get back to that base. If the squishies got the last laugh at him, his siblings would never let him live it down.

And speaking of his siblings...

"I know you're there," he said, calling into the dark.

He heard a grumble in his audios and a little discordant tune in his mind, and Sonar appeared from the shadows. He gave Frenzy a small smile – an inherent reflex of the organic body casing that Frenzy was coming to accept – and a tentative, comforting pulse that Frenzy returned with his own.

"You're not supposed to be here," he said amusedly, propping himself up on the berth. "Soundwave will be angry."

Unlike all the other times, Sonar didn't so much as flinch at the oft-used taunt. So Frenzy then asked, "How'd you give Barricade the slip? There's no way he would have let you off on your own."

Sonar just gave a rueful smile before stepping closer. "Lord Starscream called Barricade," he said. "He had to leave the room for awhile. I'll be back before he knows I'm gone. If not, Blitz and Stockade agreed to cover for me."

Frenzy's optics widened, and his head tilted just a bit to get a better view of his sibling.

The metal implants were integrating with the organic flesh very nicely. There weren't even scars showing where they were first put in, though Frenzy had expected that. Soundwave would not have settled for less. But more striking was the way he was carrying himself. He wasn't the hunched over, frightened little thing that Soundwave first presented to them, all that time ago, and though the virus still attacked from time to time, Sonar was getting better at fighting it off.

Gone was the time that he would look into his youngest sibling's face and he would see the Autobots' pet. That being was no more...that being hadn't even existed. Sonar was not human; his frequencies were proof of this. It was all just that stubborn virus, overriding the underlying programming, corrupting the way that Sonar acted and thought, just as the "Autobot" programming had nearly taken Ravage from them. There was only Sonar now, so vibrant and so very much _theirs _that Frenzy didn't know how he missed him in the first place.

They had saved him from the Autobots, though Sonar still had some growing up to do before he was old enough to realize it.

"Are you okay?" Sonar asked, placing a hand on Frenzy's uninjured arm, and inspecting the patched-up shoulder.

"Better than okay," he answered, scoffing. "I'm ready to leave this place and get back at those glitching little—"

"But you can't," Sonar said matter-of-factly. His smile grew into a mischievous smirk. "Soundwave basically ordered you not to, else you'll be chained to this berth."

Frenzy glared at him. "Chains can't hold me, little glitch."

"But humiliation might," he answered. "You get out before Soundwave gives you a clean bill of health, and I'll tell the New-cons what happened."

"You wouldn't."

"Try me."

"Once I'm out of here--"

Suddenly, Sonar pushed himself up on the berth, wrapping his arms around Frenzy's shoulders, and he fought down the instinct to shove him back off.

"Still gotta work on those manners, I see," he mused.

"I was really worried about you," Sonar said, voice muffled. "I'm glad you're okay."

"Better than okay. Weren't you listening?"

"Just had to check."

Frenzy wasn't a cassette prone to sentimentality—Sonar had enough sappy stuff for all of them combined—but he allowed himself to return the embrace, and to envelope Sonar's frequencies comfortingly with his own. They just sat there for a while, still, their connected minds playing songs to one another.

On a logical level, they knew this couldn't last. Though Frenzy was sure that Soundwave would give anything for Sonar to be by their sides for always, his youngest creation wasn't a cassette. There would be a time when he would have to be gone from them, stationed as a communications officer of another Decepticon outpost. There would be a time where his frequencies would be claimed by someone else—by his own team of symbiotes, perhaps. So even though they were siblings and would always be siblings, even though their frequencies would always be in tune with one another, in their sparks, they were already preparing to say goodbye.

But on that orn, in the silence and in the songs of their frequencies, they felt as if it would last forever.

**Present**

Blaster shielded Sam's frequencies, muting them to anyone scanning for them. Once he thought that they were far enough from where Soundwave could have last pinpointed him, Blaster set him down.

Again, they should just take him and run, but it wasn't only the Decepticon insignia on Sam's left shoulder that convinced Blaster that they should at least try starting the reclaiming process.

Though Sam was acting docile, the chaotic patterns in his frequencies indicated otherwise. Sam was extremely close to bolting again. Once inside the Autobot base, where he would feel even more trapped, that impulse to flee might change into an impulse to fight his way out.

They didn't want to have to bring Sam back as a prisoner.

He eased in the introductions. Sam reacted better than he anticipated towards Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Rewind and Eject, which gave Blaster hope that he'd be able to connect to their frequencies in the future. Sam would have to disconnect with Soundwave, and thus with Soundwave's cassettes; there was no question about it. If Sam were to rejoin the Autobots, he couldn't have such a connection with high-ranking Decepticons. But Sam's frequencies, now that Blaster was in a better position to inspect them, were more underdeveloped than he had first thought. He still needed such connections, might forever need such connections, which made him, at the same time, stronger and weaker at technopathy than Blaster was at his skill level.

"You're his equal." Blaster was surprised at Sam's words. Maybe Sam was as deluded about Soundwave's opinion of Blaster as he was of Soundwave's love for his creations.

"Sam?" a voice asked. Blaster turned towards the speaker, smiling. He had asked Mikaela and Bumblebee to stay out of sight until Sam calmed down a little more, or else his frequencies might go berserk again. They had had enough waiting, and Blaster and his cassettes stepped back. He had reassured Sam all that he was able; now, the rest was up to Mikaela and Bumblebee.

"Sam," Mikaela repeated again, shyly. Bumblebee, behind Mikaela, went a little forward.

"Sam?" Bumblebee asked. Blaster could feel their open, clumsy frequencies reaching towards him, and smiled when he felt Sam's frequencies readily connect with theirs. He doubted that Bumblebee and Mikaela could feel the subtle acceptance, but it was still a good sign.

Sam was coming back.

"I…" Sam said tentatively, and he edged a little closer to them. "I know you."

They looked at each another, as though dreading a repeat of their first encounter, but Blaster smiled and nodded to them encouragingly. Sam's frequencies were calmer now, purposeful in their connections. He wouldn't be bolting like he did the first time around.

Sam looked at Bumblebee, and gave an unsure, but unmistakeable, smile. The one that Bumblebee returned was a mixture of relief, and joy, and love.

Sam turned to Mikaela, and said, "I think…I think love you."

Mikaela was smiling—laughing on the inside, maybe.

"I think I love you, too, Sam."

Blaster turned away, and reoriented his scanners so that he could give the three some privacy as they met one another again. His cassettes, Ramhorn rolling her optics and Eject looking embarrassed and Steeljaw and Rewind turning away politely, followed suit.

They needed to contact the Autobot base. Only half the people there condoned their less-than-authorized mission, and only a fraction of those knew where Bumblebee and Mikaela had been.

Blaster opened the channel to make the connections…and nothing. His channels were blocked.

_What the…? _

And then his optics widened in horror.

How had he missed it?!

"Bumblebee! Mikaela!"

They looked back at Blaster, startled.

"I'm sorry," he said frantically, and his cassettes were already urging the three onto the open road, the fastest track back to Autobot territory. "He's coming."

**Past**

Jazz was usually a level-headed mech, but Prowl was adept at walking on that fine line.

"You sound worse than Red Alert," Jazz said, as they both sat in the otherwise empty rec room, nursing the last few volts left in their energon cubes. Somehow, a casual remark, forgotten now, had lead to one of Prowl's favourite arguments.

"You know that what I am saying is true," Prowl answered coolly. "Let us consider the best case scenario; that 'Sam,' as you insist on calling him, will come willingly with Mikaela and Bumblebee. What happens then?"

"Well, then, we'll have to fight to keep him, won't we?" It was an obvious answer, and Jazz was getting uncharacteristically frustrated that Prowl couldn't see it. It would be hard; having spent much time with the mech even before the war broke out, Jazz knew that Soundwave would be very angry to have his ill-gotten gains stolen from him. "Those two have been fighting for the kid ever since day one. Nothing's going to change that."

"They will fight _for _him, but they will not fight him."

"What makes you think that they'll have to fight him?"

Prowl gave his friend a look of incredulity. "Were your optics offlined the day he came waltzing up the base? He was not here for a reunion. He was here to free Ravage—he was here as an enemy. He has spent the majority of his life under Soundwave's guidance, believing that he was actually cared for. They will have to fight—to keep Soundwave away from him, and to keep him away from Soundwave. At this point, I have no doubts that it will take nothing short of physical force to keep them apart."

"Once he knows the truth—once he's figured out what Soundwave's done to him, he'll come around."

"Unlike the human soap operas have lead you to believe, Jazz," Prowl said dryly, "one moment's revelation does not undo years of damage. Sam has ties to Soundwave and to the cassettes, and will continue to do so. If he does indeed come under our care, his allegiance will be highly questionable for a long time."

"So you don't want to do it? Just because it's hard?"

"I do not want them to take these risks for a Decepticon who would sooner shoot them than return with them." Prowl paused, draining his energon cube as Jazz looked skyward for patience. Jazz was sure that, subconsciously at least, that Prowl was amused at this sight. More often than not, their places would be reversed. "If he were ever to come with them," Prowl continued, "he would come as a prisoner, not as a friend."

"Look. Sam _did _attack the base, but that was only to get Ravage out. That was because he was concerned for who he thought was a 'friend' and sibling. Sam's still under there. Just hidden, deluded, that's all. Stop being so pessimistic. Why don't you want to save him?"

"There is nothing to be saved."

"You haven't even tried! Why are you _doing _this, Prowl?" Jazz asked, finally snapping. ""'Cuz you know what? I'm doin' what I'm doing because I'm thinking that maybe, _maybe _right now, they could really use a friend. You see the way they sneak around behind our backs? You ever think that _maybe _if you'd just _listen _to them that—Scrap it, Prowl! The way things are goin,' there's a good chance that those two will go off on their own little solo mission, and we can't watch them all the time. If you know all this already, then why don't you help them?"

Prowl seemed to shrink a little, his optics downcast. His voice, however, remained steady. "I am helping them—in the only way I know how."

"Well maybe that's not the only way."

"And is your way better?" Prowl asked, and both rose a little in their seats. "You encourage their belief that, once they have him back, it is as though nothing has changed. It is not that easy. Even if Sam's casing is human, he has frequencies like we do—somehow, he has become technopathic, like we are. Soundwave is a master at manipulating frequencies; he makes manipulating the frequencies of alien species a quaint little past-time. Vulnerable ones such as Sam's are child's play. Sam has been reprogrammed, Jazz. _Reprogrammed. _Do you know what that means? It means that Sam is gone, and he will never come back. All this new being will do is bring them pain."

Jazz was about to retort, but then stopped when he noticed something…odd, about the way that Prowl was holding himself. Shoulders hunched over, fingers wrapped tightly around the energon cube, optics flickering between blue and white-blue so quickly that the change would be missed by the casual gaze.

"What are you afraid of?" he asked, his tone softening. Prowl's optics shuttered.

"I fear nothing."

"To borrow a human term: bullshit."

Prowl remained silent.

Jazz shook his head, and removed his visor—another human trait that he had picked up unconsciously. Some of their contacts would, under duress and under circumstances to show it, remove their glasses and make a show of cleaning them as they gathered their thoughts. As he did so, his thumb brushed against an almost-forgotten scar on the side of his head, where the metal plating did not overlap perfectly.

Barricade had given it to him, after he had interrupted his attack on Prowl.

There was something wrong with that mech. Whereas other 'Cons at least had motives and ambitions, Barricade's driving raison d'être seemed to be being Prowl's personal demon.

Was that was he afraid of? That Sam would turn out like Barricade, and attempt to destroy all that Mikaela and Bumblebee loved as Barricade attempted to do with Prowl? Everyone knew what had happened to Prowl's brother—everyone knew about Barricade.

What was Prowl afraid of? That if the impossible was possible, _if _Sonar and Sam were actually one and the same...that that meant that Barricade and the imposter who stole his brother's spark and name and committed so many atrocities in the name of Decepticon conquest were the same as well?

What was he afraid of? That Sonar would do as Barricade had done, forever taunting Mikaela and Bumblebee, claiming to be Sam and using that identity against them?

Reprogramming, and all its implications…It was a frightening thought.

Jazz looked up, realizing the answer, but Prowl continued to avoid his gaze. He only looked away, and it was with a strange, small voice that Jazz hadn't heard in vorns that Prowl said, "I do not want them to be hurt."

Jazz's optics shuttered, unsure how to answer. Truth be told, that tone alone made him quake a little. In the end, all he had to offer was a lame, "I know, Prowl." Another pause, and Jazz pushed his energon cube across the table. It met against Prowl's with a soft clink. "Ah, scrappin' hell," he said, using a strange expression of Cybertronian and human curses. "How are we going to get them out of this one?"

"Catch them as they fall," Prowl said, and for the first time in a long time, the SIC actually looked tired. "That is all we can do."

**Present**

The happiness of having Sam back again was quickly overshadowed by the terror of losing him again.

They moved quickly. They didn't know how far Soundwave was from them, or how quickly he was coming.

"Take Sam and go!" Blaster said, tracking down Soundwave's frequencies for a confrontation. "We'll hold off Soundwave."

Bumblebee went to the road, transformed, and popped open his doors.

"Sam! Come on!" he urged, and felt another pang of fear when he looked back and saw Sam just standing there, looking wildly between Bumblebee and the darkness that they had just left behind.

He was torn, his fists clenched, an expression that could only be described as "lost" writ all over his face.

Bumblebeee was hit really hard with the realization that, despite what Soundwave had done to him, _Sam couldn't choose. _

"Sam!" he urged again. "Please, get in!" _Please, please, please…_

He was on the verge of transforming and just scooping him up and _running _when Mikaela intervened for him. She took Sam, and, despite what protests he might have had, he let her push him into the front seat. Bumblebee snapped his door shut.

Mikaela ran ahead of him, transformed without stopping, hit the road and just kept going. Bumblebee followed.

"Will Blaster be okay?" Sam asked quietly.

"He will," Bumblebee answered. Sam turned away from him, and Bumblebee knew that he didn't dare ask about the other mech.

Bumblebee shook off that feeling. They needed to bring Sam _back _before they could even think of the amount of psychotherapy he would need.

But their enemies saw them before they could even sense them, let alone see them. They were driving as quickly as possible, for what seemed like an eternity, but they hadn't gone far enough. A blast hit the asphalt before them. Mikaela couldn't stop in time, and swerved off the road.

Bumblebee braked hard, and felt Sam brace himself inside him. He turned around quickly—just stopping would leave him vulnerable, and couldn't just ditch Sam and transform, not with all the cassettes running around. Blaster and his team couldn't occupy them forever.

He accelerated, his scanners on the car behind him, a very familiar car that was closing in fast, frantically trying to pinpoint Mikaela.

They couldn't turn back. If Mikaela had been injured, she'd make a tempting hostage. They needed to draw their pursuer away from her.

"Barricade," Sam said quietly inside him, looking into the rear-view mirror.

"What's he doing here?" Bumblebee said tersely. He didn't expect an answer, and wasn't given one.

"Where's Mikaela?" Sam asked, and for the first time during their high-speed chase, a frantic tone entered his voice. "Is she okay?"

Bumblebee didn't answer.

_Mikaela, _Bumblebee radioed. _Where are you? Are you alright? Were you hit? _

_Bumblebee, _Mikaela radioed back. _Where's Sam?_

_He's with me. Are you hurt? Where are you? We need a meeting place. _

_Bumblebee, _Mikaela said. Her frequencies felt…odd. _Whatever happens, don't let go of Sam._

_I won't, _he answered, tense and determined, but also a little baffled. _Where are you? _

She didn't answer. Her comm. link was cut in mid-sentence.

Bumblebee tried keeping his panic down. There were perfectly logical and safe explanations as to why that happened.

_This was never supposed to happen. We were never supposed to make contact. _

_I was supposed to protect them._

What was he supposed to do now? What now?

Bumblebee took a sharp U-turn, and shot past Barricade. Before Barricade could follow, a familiar shape hurtled, seemingly out of nowhere, and the force of the impact drove Barricade off the road.

The beings detached, and then transformed, blasters and blades at the ready.

_Prowl! _Bumblebee said, in surprise and in relief. This was a fiasco; everyone coming from everywhere, but to say that he was glad for Prowl's help would have been an understatement.

_Keep running, _Prowl said calmly, as though he was doing nothing more than taking a stroll down the base corridors, even as he was beating Barricade's faceplate into the dirt. _I've called for help. Take Sam to the base. _

_We lost Mikaela. She was driven off-road; we were separated. _

_Find her if you can. _

Bumblebee complied, keeping his scanners on both fighters until they were just a tiny dot in the distance. They quickly went back to the place in the road where Barricade had first forced them to turn. Bumblebee slowed down.

Mikaela could be injured. If he missed her because he was just driving too fast…

"I lost her frequencies," Sam said, his hands gripping onto Bumblebee's steering wheel as he frantically looked for her. "What happened to her?"

"I don't know, Sam," Bumblebee answered, keeping his voice calm although he was far from calm. "She'll be fine. We'll find her."

"Bumblebee," Sam mumbled.

"We'll be okay, Sam," he said quietly back.

"Autobot," a voice rang out. A chilling, familiar voice that somehow overrode the sounds of tires and metal and tortured asphalt and the screaming inside Bumblebee's own mind. He braked once again.

Soundwave loomed into view, Blaster standing before him, their cassettes gathered around them in a tight circle, glaring at one another.

_Blaster? _Bumblebee radioed. _Why the Pit are you just standing—_

But then Bumblebee realized why Blaster was just standing there helplessly. Somehow, Ravage—or some other cassette—had managed to wander from the fray. Somehow, just somehow.

Trapped under Ravage's claws, and with the rest of Soundwave's cassettes aiming blasters at her, Mikaela lay perfectly still, quietly bleeding out energon from her right shoulder.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

**Author note: **Second-to-last chapter! We're almost there! : )

* * *

Becoming

**13**

**Past**

It was just another day.

Will burst out of the foliage, transformed without stopping, hit the ground running with his paintball cannon at the ready. He locked onto his fast-moving target, and fired. A cheerful pink colour splashed over an already blue-and-red marked Ironhide.

"_Pink?!_"

Will couldn't help it; he grinned as maniacally as he dared before turning around and getting the heck out of there.

He was off again; Ironhide was much stronger than him, but Will proved to be the faster of the two.

In the distance, he could hear nothing short of a cackle emit from Mikaela's vocalizers, while Sam laughed and Epps let out a triumphant yell.

Yes, just another day.

**Present**

Not only the plant, but the nearby town had been drawn into the chaos.

And they—Autobots, humans, and beings stuck in between—were left to pick up the pieces.

Will was moving some debris—a mindless, repetitive task that helped to keep him calm—when he heard something. Something that he hadn't heard in a long while.

He looked in the direction of the sound. "Epps?" he said, nudging his partner. Robert looked at him, his optics contracting and then widening in a questioning look.

"Yeah, Lennox?"

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Will looked at him incredulously. "Turn off your radio, and max out your audios."

"Oh." He titled his head, listening. His optics widened. "I think that's a kid."

"This way," Will said. They made their way through the maze of fallen buildings.

"You ever thought…back then…that we'd be doing this?" Robert said distractedly, scanning around for that child. He stepped over a pile of rocks and rubble—an impossible feat, back when he had been physically human.

"Back then?"

"You know, when we were first…" Robert gestured up and down at his form. "Changed."

Will looked away on the pretence of scanning an already cleared area, and then answered, "I don't remember what I was thinking back then."

"Me either. I just remember bein' real angry—angry at the agents, angry at the world, angry at the Autobots, if you can imagine— but then I woke up one day, thinking to myself…that I was going to make the best of it."

"You ever get to thinking that…that we're not human anymore?"

Robert, now a good distance away from him, looked back at him, his expression incredulous. "No, Will. Bein' human…I think that comes from the inside, you know? And I'm a 'Bot, but I'm a human too. Doesn't need to be one or the other. I'm still me, no matter what."

Will stopped, and then looked at him. "What?" Rob asked. "Did I say somethin' wrong?"

Will shook his head slowly. "No. I was just…thinking."

"Oh. Well, you want to try and think and walk at the same time?" he asked, his tone slightly amused.

Will gave him a playful punch on the shoulder. "Come on, then."

They found her, her backs to them, crying and fretfully rubbing her eyes with clenched fists.

"Hey there," Will said gently.

She whirled around, petrified and ready to bolt. His movements slow and easy, Will lightly tapped at his Autobot insignia.

Then she startled bawling. They looked at one another, and then back at the little girl, completely unsure of what to do. Then, she rushed into Will, burying her face in his shoulder.

"Calm down, kid," he said gently. "It's okay. It's all over now."

Through her sobs, he made out a muffled, "Can you take me to my parents?"

Putting her securely in the crook of his arm, Will walked to a temporary refugee site. He and Robert separated at the entrance, Robert promising to tell the proper human and Autobot authorities who they had found.

Will looked over the vast sea of tired, frightened people, wondering how in the world he was going to find this child's parents, when—

"Emily!"

"Daddy!" She reached outward, nearly leaping out of his grasp. He set her down, and watched as she and her father rushed towards one another. Her father picked her up, and held her tightly.

"Emily…I thought I lost you…"

"Daddy…"

"Thank-you, sir," her father said, finally noticing Will there.

"Not a problem." _I had a daughter once, too…_

Emily's father turned, and started walking away, when Emily looked over her shoulder and said, "Thank-you, Mr. Robot."

Though he was now physically incapable of such a thing, he could still feel his throat tighten.

He walked out of the refugee compound, where Ironhide was waiting for him outside.

"Will…"

"'S'alright, Ironhide," he said, optics widening and contracting quickly. "I'll be alright."

Ironhide doubtless didn't believe him, but he nodded anyway.

He still didn't know who he was. He didn't know who he was becoming. But he did know that…that Rob was right. That the human and the Autobot were one and the same, and no matter what the past held and what the future promised, he was Will, and would always be Will.

And, for now at least, that would have to be enough.

**Past**

It was raining again.

Prowl hissed as a droplet of acid hit him, immediately eating through the thin protoform shell. Barricade drew him closer, trying to make full use of their tiny shelter, and immediately applied a healing salve so that the acid wouldn't do any more damage.

"Thanks."

"Anytime," Barricade answered. He looked up at the unforgiving clouds. They were near a city, judging by the strength of the acid rain, but they didn't know which one. Every mid-spire looked the same to them. "Well, the bad news is, it's raining pretty bad, we don't know where we are, we're closer to ground level than we expected, and this potion jar," he said, motioning to the salve, "is almost out."

"What's the good news?"

"Neither of us have glitched for the past couple orns."

Prowl held his brother tighter. "Don't worry 'Cade. We'll get out of this. We'll make it out of here, squirt," Prowl promised. Barricade didn't say anything; just nodded slowly, and clung closer to his brother.

**Present**

Prowl had disabled Barricade's weapons during the fray, but his own were now useless—mere sparking pieces now, lying in the dirt.

Prowl needed to buy Bumblebee and Mikaela time, to give them what he was never given…to give them their friend back.

Barricade pushed Prowl off. Prowl twisted, landing on his feet and whirling to face the Decepticon. Barricade's claws were out, several rows of sharp teeth bared. Marks were scratched in the armour—old scars and new wounds.

"Hello again, brother," Barricade said, almost pleasantly. They circled one another, unwilling to stay still, unwilling to let their enemy get behind them.

"You are not my brother," Prowl said, almost automatically. How many times had they've been in a fight like this before? How many times had Barricade baited him with those same words? Prowl figured out long ago that he couldn't afford to let his affections for someone long gone to cloud his judgment. The price for learning that lesson had been high.

"Is that what you believe?"

"It is the truth."

Suddenly, Barricade rushed towards him, and Prowl stopped his attack. They grappled, one's hands crushing the other one's, faceplates inches from one another. Inside their minds, their frequencies thrashed, trying to find a weak spot in the others' firewalls. It was a useless ploy, with both their resident technopaths occupied—but it was still an opportunity to get the other distracted, to get the other to make a mistake.

"I am your brother."

"My brother is gone."

"You never fought for me."

"I fought for him." Prowl gained the upper hand, and twisted, sending Barricade along the ground, leaving deep gouges in the earth. "It wasn't enough. You murdered him, Barricade. You are the virus that was never cleansed."

"No, I'm not!" Barricade snarled, getting back on his feet. "I am here—I am real! You never fought for me, Prowl! No, you didn't! You abandoned me! You fought me, every step, every turn! What happened to you?"

He charged him again, and Prowl didn't move fast enough. He was hit, sent sprawling backwards, and Barricade dug his knee into his back, twisting his arm and pinning it behind him, as he dug his faceplate into the dirt.

Prowl took his still-free arm, then took drew out his claws from the tips. He dug them into Barricade's knee. Barricade howled, and the pain caused him to loosen his grip enough for Prowl to break his hold, and toss him off.

Prowl made it to his feet at the same time that Barricade did.

Barricade smiled at him. "Claws, Prowl?" he asked, inspecting the energon trickling down his leg. "You're learning, I see."

They circled one another again, and Prowl looked at him coolly. He needed to stay calm. He couldn't let Barricade to him. Not again, never again. "You are not my brother," he repeated.

Barricade bared several rows of sharp, pointed teeth—and then tilted his head to the side, as though receiving a message…or an order.

He gave a low, savage growl. "Until the next time, Prowl," he said. He backed off, burning red optics never leaving Prowl's cool blue, and then transformed, tearing down the road with high speed, as though expecting Prowl to follow him.

Prowl didn't. He never did.

**Past**

Blaster leaned against the entrance frame. Soundwave was carefully packing away what few possessions he had. On the berth, Obsidian was recharging, her optics open to mere slits.

_You're leaving?_

_I must, _Soundwave answered, turning towards him.

_Why? Megatron—_

_Megatron will see us into a new Golden Age, _Soundwave said, his frequencies gaining a sharpened edge before softening again. _A better future, Blaster. Just think of it._

_Why can't I come with you?_

Soundwave's frequencies pulsed with amusement, and connected with Blaster's. Soundwave placed a hand on his shoulder. _You must finish your studies. _

_Ultrasound and Wavelength…_Blaster didn't bother putting words to the rest of that sentence. Soundwave knew their creators' shortcomings just as well as he did. They didn't have the luxury of unconditional love from their creators.

_They know what they are doing. Though they come short as creators, they are excellent teachers. _

Blaster's shoulders sagged. Obsidian's optics opened, and she stalked towards them, circling around Soundwave before resting against Blaster's leg. _I'll miss you, _Blaster said finally.

Soundwave regarded his younger half co-creation. _When the time is right, I will come back for you, _he said finally.

_Promise?_

_Promise._

**Present**

Mikaela's optics were dim, and Bumblebee wasn't sure if she was still conscious or not. Precious energon was still flowing from her shoulder—too much. She'd been disarmed, her weapons snapped into pieces and thrown yards away. Ravage was stepping on the injured shoulder, energon staining her claws. The rest of the cassettes surrounded her, looking down at Mikaela disdainfully. Soundwave stood a little in front of them, preventing a rescue attempt by Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Eject, and Rewind.

Blaster, standing a little in front of his own team, must have lost his main weapons during the fray, and now he was depending on a smaller pistol, slightly lowered to the ground as his gaze flipped between Soundwave, Mikaela, and Bumblebee. He and his cassettes had patches where the electrical wiring was nicked and now sparking, and deep marks were gouged in their armour.

They gave as good as they got, though. Soundwave's cassettes didn't look any better, and the mech himself had had his visor knocked off and one optic was nearly disconnected, dangling by the wires as a tiny amount of energon coated the socket and trickled down his faceplate in a thin, tiny, glowing stream.

Soundwave and Blaster seemed to be in a silent conversation. Bumblebee could catch snatches of the messages that they sent to one another via their frequencies, but they were nothing but a jumble of sounds. Around them was only tense silence, as their respective cassettes glared at one another, looking warily between the opposing side and the being that Bumblebee was trying his damndest to save.

"Don't lie to me!" Blaster suddenly burst out, making almost all of them jump. "Never again!"

None of them heard what Soundwave said in reply, but Bumblebee got the feeling that, if Blaster had been human, he would have paled.

At Blaster's silence, Soundwave half-turned towards Bumblebee. His cassettes looked up briefly, before turning their attention back to Mikaela. "Release him."

"Bumblebee," Blaster said evenly, and Bumblebee knew that he was trying to keep Mikaela, Sam, and himself calm. Whatever Soundwave had been telling him had been forgotten, at least for the moment. "Get behind me."

Slowly, Bumblebee neared Blaster. It felt like it took an eternity to cross the last few feet, all optics on them, everyone's weapons trained everywhere.

Bumblebee felt Sam double over inside him, his fingers curling with inhuman strength around his steering wheel. Bumblebee slowed to a crawl. "Sam?"

Sam just gave a soft whimper. "Stop the noise," he whispered.

"What noise?" he asked desperately. His attention switched quickly between Mikaela—her optics still dim, her precious energon still flowing from her shoulder, too much, just too much—and Sam, who wasn't answering him but clung to him almost painfully.

Sam didn't answer, and Bumblebee checked the frequencies. Bumblebee wasn't equipped for what was going on in Sam's mind. He was trained for his position—he used frequencies to scout out surrounding enemies, to recognize from a distance who was enemy, and who was friend. But Sam was trained in a different way…Sam needed something different. Bumblebee could vaguely feel it, the onslaught of frequencies that slammed into Sam's mind: the invading frequencies of Soundwave and his team, and then the frequencies of Blaster and his cassettes rushing in, trying to defend Sam's already fragile psyche.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Bumblebee said, feeling totally helpless.

Sam didn't answer him; he might not have heard him, for all that Bumblebee knew. So many voices going on in his head, maybe Sam wouldn't be able to hear one speaking to him in the outside world.

Bumblebee made it, and opened his door. Sam stumbled out, and Blaster's cassettes immediately surrounded him. He leaned heavily against Rewind, his eyes unseeing and face so pale, the silver implants criss-crossing his face and entering into his eyes prominently sticking out from the flesh.

Bumblebee transformed quickly, standing beside Blaster, retrieving his weapons, and raised them—only to lower them again when Ravage pressed her claws into Mikaela's wound, causing her to cry out, her optics slowly flickering online.

"Bumblebee?" she said, looking at him as he could only look back at her, looking warily at her, at the cassettes surrounding her, and then at Soundwave. Her gaze turned towards Sam, whose frame nearly disappeared behind those of Blaster's cassettes. "Don't let go of him," she said.

"I won't."

"Release her," Blaster said.

"First, release him," Soundwave answered.

They just needed to stall. Backup was coming…Prowl had called for help. They just needed _time. _

But with Mikaela in the hands of the enemy and with her life literally dripping away from her, they couldn't wait forever.

"Why?" Soundwave asked coldly, looking straight at Blaster. His weapon too—a secondary rifle—was lowered, but Bumblebee did not trust that "passive" pose. "Why?" At their silence, he said, "You have stolen him: why?"

Bumblebee felt his optics growing wide, and knew that Blaster, his cassettes, and Mikaela were also looking at him in surprise.

"_We've _stolen?" Blaster asked, anger lacing his tone. "You are the one who—"

"Sonar," Soundwave said. In the peripherals of his viewing screens, Bumblebee saw Sam, still leaning against Rewind for support, look up at him, tears following the track of silver implants coming out of the sockets of his eyes and going down his face. Soundwave, his movements slow, and deliberate, and…and _deceptive, _put away his rifle. He stretched his hand towards Sam, palm facing upward. "Come." Bumblebee's spark gave a painful pulse as Sam made a move to step forward, as though in a trance, but was stopped by Steeljaw, who positioned herself in front of him and pushed him back gently.

"Sam," Blaster said, his own weapon still not put away. Bumblebee wanted so badly to shoot Soundwave, and he knew that Blaster wanted to, too, but the warning look that he got from Ravage, and the sight of Frenzy's blades threatening to dig into Mikaela's throat stopped them "Sam," Blaster repeated, and, as though with great effort, Sam looked up back at him. "You stay right where you are."

Soundwave's attention turned back to Blaster. "Why?" he asked again.

"What do you think we're doing this for?" Bumblebee finally snapped. "We're here to rescue Sam." He moved to take a step forward. Ravage dug her claws in a little deeper, and Mikaela hissed in pain. Bumblebee stopped almost in mid-step.

Soundwave's head tilted slightly to the side, as though in amusement. "Rescue?"

"Sam," Blaster said again, his voice tight. Bumblebee knew right then and there what Blaster was going to tell Sam, and his cassettes knew, too; they tightened around Sam protectively. "Sam, you're not who you think you are. You're not who _they--_" he gestured towards Soundwave and his team— "have been telling you that you are."

Sam looked uneasily between Blaster and Soundwave. "What do you mean?"

"Sam," Blaster said slowly, as though dreading whatever madness the truth could bring. "You were reprogrammed."

**X x X**

She had never felt Sonar's frequencies act so badly before; they were worse than the time they were afraid that he would terminate. They were wild, out of their grasp, tangling with desperation to the frequencies of the femme under her claws and those of the mech that held him. She couldn't connect with him—Blaster had caged him, had cut him off from them. Blaster had him trapped, and those two Autobots were the chains.

He was their prisoner, but not for long. Even if she had to do it slowly—especially if she had to do it slowly—she'd kill every last one of these Autobots for doing who knew what to her brother.

Ravage wanted to rip off the white Autobot's head. Unfortunately, they still needed her. The Autobots may not have valued Sonar, but it seemed that they would go great lengths for this former squishy. She was a handy bargaining chip, even if the Autobots seemed highly reluctant to hand over their prize.

They could see him. He was behind the Autobot cassettes, his frame nearly hidden behind theirs. Blaster stood in front of them, preventing them from just going over there and grabbing their sibling.

_Little glitch, _she said to her brother, even though she knew that he couldn't hear her. _How did you get yourself in this mess? _

It made her feel frantic, but she was skilled enough not to show it, to not let it effect her. Those emotions wouldn't help get Sonar back.

Blaster was the mastermind behind all this. They could feel it, his frequencies throwing up firewalls, preventing them from fully contacting Sonar and bringing him back to his senses. Blaster had almost hidden their sibling away from them, and it was only because Soundwave was skilled enough to see through the illusion that they had finally found him…right at the nick of time, it seemed.

Blaster was always trying to take what was theirs. He had tried to take Ravage before, claiming that she belonged to the Autobots, and that it was Ravage who was the fake, and not the glitched Autobot programming.

And now…now he was trying to turn him against them.

"You were reprogrammed."

Ravage and her siblings gave each other quick, desperate looks, their frequencies scrambling in vain to reconnect with Sonar's. Sonar knew little about reprogramming; he didn't know that what had been done was to save him. He only believed the stories that the older officers told the New-cons, to keep them wary of the Autobots.

_Don't get caught, __or else those Autobots will reprogram you!_

"What?" Sonar asked, and he looked in between them.

"He kidnapped you, brainwashed you, and made you forget everything—your parents, your friends, Mikaela, Bumblebee—he made you forget who you were…who you still _are, _underneath it all. You belong with us, Sam," Blaster said, in a gentle, deceptive tone.

Ravage was furious, and her anger reverberated in the frequencies of her siblings.

"You do not own him," Ravage hissed.

"And you call us 'Decepticons?'" Frenzy snapped.

"Ravage," Sonar said, looking at her. She hadn't seen him look that lost and uncertain since he was newly sparked. "Is it true?"

Ravage looked up at Soundwave, who gave a small nod. "Yes," she said slowly.

He looked horrified.

"You don't even deny it?" Blaster asked. Trust an Autobot to twist the circumstances in their favour.

"Sonar," Soundwave said, and his voice took on a tone that Ravage hadn't heard in a long time. "You were reprogrammed. But it was to save you."

"What?!" the Autobots demanded in unison.

"I was going to tell you…when you were old enough to understand."

"Understand what?"

Soundwave looked at him, almost pleadingly, and then glanced at Ravage. He needed help…to talk to his youngest, he needed help from the oldest. He had spoken aloud, and very slowly, unused to have to communicate in this way, but Sonar just wouldn't understand it if he just used frequencies. Sonar couldn't receive the signals properly because of what Blaster had done, and he couldn't understand words in frequencies yet. Ravage had never before seen their creator so clumsy…so vulnerable. It was hurting them; she saw her expression mirrored in her siblings' faceplates, her pain echoed in their frequencies.

She swore that she'd rip out Sonar's implants, piece by piece, for putting them through this when he was back with them, back safe and sound.

She turned to Sonar, and said, "You came to us, lost…confused. Lost in the programming of a virus, your powers growing beyond your ability to control them. Remember all those voices you kept hearing, how they scared you so badly?"

Sonar nodded. How could he forget?

"It had been worse for you. The Autobots didn't help you. We did."

"You called for me," Soundwave said, his tone and frequencies very gentle despite the situation, as though Sonar was newly-made again. "But, try as I did, I could not find you then."

"What do you mean?" Blaster said. Ravage really just wanted him to _shut up. _"You took him, right from the Autobot base!"

Soundwave looked at Blaster, his voice once again level and cool. "Assumption: incorrect. Infiltration: not possible. Human quarters of Autobot base: almost impenetrable. Sonar came to us."

"What?" the yellow Autobot challenged. Ravage's optics narrowed when she felt his frequencies cling tighter to Sonar's. "You mean to tell us that he just waltzed out of our base and straight into your hands?"

"How else," Ravage hissed. "How else do you explain how your base was left intact that day?"

"If it was us, Autobot," Rumble said. "You would have seen a body count."

"We're efficient like that," Lazerbeak put in. "If we'd gone in far enough to rescue Sonar, we'd have also planted a virus in your base, to make sure you wouldn't follow."

"A virus would have alerted us to you. You wouldn't risk all that you stole," Eject said.

"We didn't even know that Sonar was _there _until Soundwave brought him back to us," Ravage said.

Soundwave cast a look at Sonar, a look that conveyed only the surface of his worry and affection for him. "We did not find him. He found us. Luck was on our side."

There was a pause, and then the yellow Autobot said, "Don't listen to them, Sam, they're just lying to you."

Sonar just looked in between both sides, an expression that could only be described as _lost _writ all over his pale face. Inside their minds, his frequencies twisted and tangled until they ceased to make sense.

This was going nowhere.

Ravage looked up at Soundwave, quietly sending him a request.

Looking evenly at those who would take his creation from him, he said, "Words: useless. Proposition: an exchange."

"What?"

"I am not leaving here without a youngling, Autobot," Ravage said quietly, her words punctured by the white femme's sharp hiss as she dug her claws a little harder into the smaller frame. "If you deny me that one, I shall take this one from you, instead."

**X x X**

Ravage moved, as if to sever the last remaining energon lines keeping Mikaela alive—

"Wait," Sam said sharply. They all turned to look out him. He looked at Ravage, at the rest of the cassettes, and then at Soundwave, his expression unreadable. "I'm coming." He took a deep breath, and then started moving towards them, and Blaster's cassettes surrounded him. "Let me go," he said softly. They looked up at Blaster, waiting for instruction.

"No, Sam," Bumblebee said, moving forward. Soundwave's cassettes tensed, their optics a bright red, and the mech himself raised his weapons just a little bit…but then Blaster put a hand on Bumblebee's shoulder.

"Blaster?" Bumblebee asked, looking up at his comrade. His look of horror mirrored Mikaela's own.

Blaster looked pained, and ashamed, and said, "Let him go."

"What?!"

Blaster took him to the side. Using his frequencies, so that Mikaela could hear, too, he said, _We have to let him go. _

_Why? We almost—_

_Mikaela is already injured. If we continue to stand between him and Sam, Soundwave will order her execution. He is through with talking._

Mikaela fought down her fear. _I"ll be okay. Just take Sam._

_Backup is arriving any moment, _Bumblebee argued desperately. _We just need to stall, just a little longer…_

_Sam has made his choice, _Blaster said. Mikaela felt her captor tense, saw out of the corner of her viewing screens that Steeljaw and probably the other cassettes were preparing to engage again, too. They had been wary, but willing to talk. Now, they were moving on to brute force.

They couldn't stall. They'd lose one or both if they did.

_Soundwave will not wait. _

Soundwave moved forward, his weapon put away, already declaring himself the victor. Already preparing to claim what he had stolen. If they were to hold back, to try to stall for just a little longer…Soundwave's other cassettes glared at them, and Ravage gave them a curious, triumphant look, as though daring them to try and keep Sam.

Logically, they knew that what Blaster said was true, but they screamed on the inside.

Blaster looked at Bumblebee, and then at Mikaela. This hurt him as much as it hurt them, but he had to continue. _Sam will survive. Mikaela will not. She has already lost too much energon._

Blaster gave his team a small nod. They glanced at one another, and then reluctantly moved away from Sam.

Slowly, Sam crossed the space in between the two groups. Soundwave crouched down, ready to take him…but he passed Soundwave without once looking up at the mech, and stopped in front of Ravage. He looked down at Mikaela, his expression completely blank.

"Sam," she said, her optics wide and pleading, although deep inside she knew that there was no other way. "Go back."

What he did then would mystify them all—including the being himself—for vorns to come. He turned away from Mikaela, and then wrapped his arms around Ravage's other leg. "Please," he said softly, but still loud enough for all of them to hear. "Please, please, please…"

She said something back to him, something that Mikaela couldn't hear. Then Sam gasped, perhaps in pain, perhaps in surprise, perhaps both, as her massive jaws closed around his shoulder, and she put her prize into Soundwave's awaiting hands.

Sam looked up at Soundwave squarely in the optics. A message passed between the human and the mech…but Blaster couldn't hear it.

He transferred the tiny form onto one of his arms, and with the opposite hand, he removed Blaster's halo, and Sam slumped in his arms, eyes closing.

Without looking back once, Soundwave took Sam, and he and many of his cassettes disappeared into the darkness.

And Bumblebee could only stand there, helpless.

He was helpless. Helpless when Ravage had gotten Mikaela, helpless when Sam was torn between truth and deception, helpless when Soundwave was telling his lies, his quiet words driving them into their processors.

Lies. All lies.

Soundwave had taken Sam before, had stolen him and they didn't know what he did to him and now would never know…and he was doing it again.

Soundwave had won.

_We lost him._

_We lost him._

_Sam, I'm so sorry._

_Forgive me._

It was a great effort, but Bumblebee forced himself to come back to the task at hand. Sam was gone, but they could still save Mikaela. There was only Ravage to contend with, now. Despite the fact that she had won, it wouldn't be beneath Ravage to kill Mikaela out of spite.

"You have what you came for," Blaster said. "Now let her go."

She tilted her head just a bit, as though amused. Amused that they entertained the thought that she would let Mikaela go. Bumblebee raised his blaster, ready to fire…

But then Ravage was gone, disappearing into the shadows.

They rushed towards Mikaela, but the fraction of a second it took to get to her was more than enough for them to flee with their prize…to cover their tracks from Blaster and Bumblebee and from the cassettes completely.

They moved to stop Mikaela from bleeding out, but she was beyond knowing or caring.

She didn't notice Blaster, didn't notice Bumblebee, didn't notice Eject and Rewind and Steeljaw and Ramhorn. She didn't even notice when Prowl, with many other Autobots, officers and New-bot alike, came.

Too late. They had come too late.

They had lost him.

All that they had hoped for, all that they had worked for…just _gone. _

And Bumblebee looked blankly where Sam disappeared while Mikaela howled to the skies, with Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Rewind and Eject comforting them to no avail while Blaster frantically tried to console them in the only way he knew how, by sending a soft lullaby in their shocked minds.

**X x X **

He woke up slowly. He was aware that he was being carried, and his frequencies stretched out, checking out his surroundings. Soundwave was carrying him, with Lazerbeak and Ratbat each perched on a shoulder. Rumble and Frenzy were walking on each side, and Ravage was behind the party a little ways, pausing to look back every so often before catching up again.

He snuggled deeper in the crook of Soundwave's arm. He felt so exhausted. What had he done all day?

Forcing himself to focus, he tried connecting to the frequencies surrounding him. Soundwave's frequencies caught his, which were more clumsy than usual—and set them back securely behind the safety of their firewalls.

Ratbat looked down at him, optics glowing warmly. "Look who's back."

Soundwave stopped, shifting the position of his arms to accommodate his stirring creation.

His siblings crowded around, and Soundwave went down on one knee so that they could see him. Ravage neared him, and Soundwave lowered his arms a bit more so that she can view her sibling properly. She gave him a gentle nudge before looking back at the dark again. He had never seen her so act so…nervous before, for lack of a better word. It scared him.

His eyes focused, unaccustomed to using visible light, let alone using that part of the spectrum to see in the dark—and then he bolt upright quickly. Too quickly. Every inch of his body stung at the sudden movement, and he went back down, groaning. He looked back at them, his eyes widening. "What happened to you?"

They looked terrible—more injured than he had ever seen them before. His siblings had sections where layers of armour had been scraped off, and he could see the energon trails. Some of their wires had also been cut, and he could see them sparking.

When they were silent, he looked up at Soundwave for an answer, and jumped so badly that he nearly fell from Soundwave's arms. Soundwave's hand set him securely back on his perch, but he could only stare.

Soundwave, along with the same scrapes and cuts that his siblings had, had also had an optic nearly gouged out. He could see that the metal and glass were held in place only by the wires, and processed energon lined the optic socket, gathering in the middle of the groove and trickling downward in one thin, tiny, glowing stream.

"Soundwave?"

He was answered with a pulse of reassurance. His panicking frequencies were quickly enveloped by everyone else's—smooth, calm, comforting.

He looked at them again, and at the area around them. He got the feeling that they were very far from the Decepticon base grounds.

He ran his hands over his face, and stopped immediately when the plates scraped uncomfortably over his flesh.

Where were they? Why were they here? Where had his faceplate gone? Why were pieces of armour missing? Where were his weapons? Where were his Raven drones? He couldn't even feel them, he was so far from them.

"What happened?" he finally asked.

His siblings looked at one another, and he couldn't tell what the expression was on their faceplates. Their frequencies felt wary, and violent, and uncertain.

"Sonar," Soundwave said. He looked up, surprised. He hadn't heard that particular tone in Soundwave's voice for a long time.

What had he done this time? More importantly: did he do something to make Soundwave angry?

"What do you remember?" Soundwave continued.

He thought back to it, and then shook his head. He drew a blank. "Was it another virus?" he asked instead. Soundwave ignored the question.

"What do you remember?" he repeated.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath in, and then out. His family's frequencies still surrounded him, and their strength was comforting. "We were training," he finally said. The events of the past couple orns came back to him slowly, in disjointed and fragmented parts, and he was sure that there were many pieces missing.

"And then?"

"And then…I partnered up with someone."

"Who?"

Try as he might, he could not remember. Every time he thought he found a pathway to the past, he was lead only to a…a block. The truth lay on the other side, but something was stopping him…like a wall of glass, only he couldn't see out and…

And now he wasn't making any sense.

He shook his head. "I don't remember a thing."

His siblings glanced at one another again, and he looked up at Soundwave.

The mech didn't seem to be surprised at his youngest creation's lost memories.

"You have had a traumatic experience," he said carefully. "Your mind has blocked out the memories in self-defence."

"I've had a _what_?" he almost yelled, panicking and rising from his position. Soundwave firmly pushed him back down, his frequencies strengthening, sending a low, smooth melody in his head. It worked—he calmed down almost immediately. "What have I done this time?" he murmured, quieting.

"Nothing we couldn't get you out of, glitch," Frenzy told him, blades bristling, his frequencies promising him that he'd protect him. "That's all you need to know."

"It'll come back to ya later," Rumble said.

"We can deal with it then," Lazerbeak added.

"Sleep now," Soundwave commanded. "You require rest to recover."

The frequencies of his family members strengthened, surrounding him, tangling with his own, calling him to a healing slumber. He began to nod off. Soundwave straightened, and they resumed their pace.

He still didn't know what he had done, but Soundwave didn't seem angry at him, and whatever it was, his siblings got him out of it. His memories would come back eventually, so it was useless to fret about it. He'd think about it when the time came...but for now, he was with his siblings and with Soundwave. All was well in the world, and that was enough for him.

"Sonar?" Ratbat asked. "Why are you leaking?"

His hands came up to touch his face, and, to his horror, tears were streaming freely down his cheeks. "I don't know."

But even though all was well in the world, something deep inside him cried, and he had no choice but to cry alongside it, while Ravage, Frenzy, Rumble, Lazerbeak, and Ratbat, though not understanding the source of his grief any better than he did, comforted him anyway, and while Soundwave (with some difficulty) stopped and cradled them all, his frequencies crooning to them gently, a soft lullaby playing in their connected minds.


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

**Author note: **Final chapter! Yay!! Thank-you to everyone who has read/reviewed/alerted/faved! It's been a blast! See you next time : )

* * *

Becoming

**14**

When Lennox returned to the Autobot base, the first words he heard were: "Mikaela's in the med-bay."

She had been brought in, bleeding profusely, but they had got to her in time. He and Robert and the other New-bots had been hovering, not even recharging until Mikaela was in the clear and they could go and see her.

They'd been too relieved at that moment to care where she got those injuries. She hadn't been with them on the mission to save the power plant, and she hadn't been called in later to help with the town refugees. It wasn't until later that they had figured out what she and Bumblebee had been up to.

Officially, they had gone on an unauthorized mission, of which only Optimus Prime knew the details. In reality, everyone knew where they had gone.

The controversy of taking Sam—which had never been a controversy to the New-bots; Sam was one of them, no matter what—which had quieted lately, came to light yet again.

Lennox got the answers slowly, but he was sure that only those involved—Mikaela, Bumblebee, Blaster, Prowl, and the cassettes—would ever know the whole truth.

He peeked in through her doorway. All healed up and ready to see another day, Mikaela had been discharged from the med-bay, and had been subsequently grounded. The Autobots called it something else, of course, but they all knew that she'd been grounded. She was lying on the bed, her optics faced towards the ceiling and glowing ever so slightly.

He rapped at the door lightly. She turned towards him. "Hey there, Will," she said, trying to smile. "Come on in." She sat up slowly, and he could hear the creaking and the whirring of gears.

"Hey, kid. How're you holding up?"

"Considering that I had my audios chewed out by Rachet, Ironhide, and Optimus Prime himself? Not too bad, thanks very much."

"The fear of bleeding out pales in comparison, huh?"

"Yup."

He chuckled dryly, and took a seat on the stool at the end of her bed. There was a moment's pause.

"So…" he said awkwardly, not sure how he could gently lean into the subject. "I heard you went to see Sam."

She looked down at her lap, her optics dimming. He looked away, letting her gather her thoughts.

"We almost had him," she said, her voice small. "You should have seen him. He would have been okay with us…not like what Prowl said. Sam was still in there."

Will looked at her carefully, and then asked, "Why didn't you tell us? We could have helped."

"We didn't want to draw attention to what we were doing. We were scared that Soundwave would catch on if too many people knew."

"Is that the only reason?"

"No," she said reluctantly. "We figured, if they don't know that we're bringing him, they can't turn him away." She shook her head. "We were really stupid…"

"It's alright Mikaela," Will said. "We'll get him next time."

She gave a bitter laugh, and Will's optics widened at the sound. She shook her head. "I'm not sure if he'll even come with us, next time. I can't believe he chose them, in the end."

"From what Blaster told me, I'd say he chose you." She looked up at him. "He went with them, because it was the only way to save you."

Her optics turned downwards again, alternately dimming and brightening. Carefully, he went over to her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. She drew him into a one-armed embrace. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

"It's okay, kid. It's okay. We learn. We grow. We get up again. That's how we are."

"We'll get him next time. We'll be stronger next time."

Will wanted to tell her that she was right. He wanted to tell her that they needed to work together, all of them. Each of them needed help and needed to help, to get where they needed to be, to become who they needed to be…to do what they needed to do.

They would all get there, in the end, if they only they held on.

But, for now, Will could only hold on to her, and tell her, "I know."

**X x X**

He still didn't know what had happened. His memories came back, just as everyone had assured him, but they came back jumbled and fragmented, and he wasn't sure which were real and which were all in his head, a result of his mind trying vainly to make connections between one memory and the next.

One "memory" that always came back to him was of two scouts, one a white femme and one a yellow mech, looking at him and smiling. And in that "memory" he had smiled back at them, even though they had borne the insignia that was the bane of his.

It must have been yet another false memory. He didn't know these Autobots; why would they act like that towards him? Why would he act even not hostile, let alone friendly, towards them?

He still didn't know what happened, but whatever he did, he was sorry. Whatever he did, it was enough to scare his siblings and his pack-mates, and maybe even Soundwave, very badly.

One of his siblings was with him at all times, occasionally hiding their presence but most of the time not bothering to.

And his fellow New-cons, even though they had always been clingy, became downright hysterical if he withdrew his frequencies from theirs.

And Soundwave…although Soundwave assured him that he was well, that he had sustained no major injuries, and that that the most important thing was that he was back with them, Soundwave's firewalls were more enforced than he had ever felt them, and sometimes he almost felt suffocated by them. He was restricted; he could only feel the frequencies in the base. He hadn't known how much those faint, unknown, and perhaps even hostile frequencies out there had added onto his senses until he was cut off from them.

Whatever he had done, it had been bad. He was sorry, and he'd never do it again if he could just figure out what had happened.

Stockade said that a group of Autobots had caught him and were dragging him back to their base to dismantle him.

Candy said that a tall white femme had tricked him out of the grounds.

Ravage said that the Autobots had almost succeeded in taking him from them.

Frenzy said that he was an idiot.

It was all very confusing.

And through it all, Soundwave said nothing.

He hoped that Soundwave wasn't angry with him.

He didn't want to bother his creator too much. Soundwave had a lot on his mind, lately, and his little stunt didn't improve matters.

So he didn't tell Soundwave about the…well, it must have been a false memory, or a glitch somewhere. It wasn't a problem, exactly, but strange things had been happening to him lately.

Like the deep, persistent feeling of loss, though he didn't know why, always there at the end of the day, like something was missing.

_Sam._

_Sam._

_Miss you._

He didn't understand what they were saying, though. They were just voices; persistent, but without context. Then there was the laughter he would hear down the corridors, even though he knew by his frequencies that no one was there. Like the voices he would hear upon waking, voices that mingled with those of the New-cons, with those of his siblings, and with those of Soundwave, even though he couldn't find the frequencies that should have came with the voice.

But unlike all the other times, the voices didn't scare him. It just saddened him, almost like the feeling he got whenever he disappointed Soundwave.

His siblings, he was sure, would be more jumpy than they were already if he told them that he was hearing voices again. Soundwave knew, though; Soundwave always knew. Maybe Soundwave didn't want him to worry about it; maybe he didn't think that it was worth worrying about. But the firewalls were fortified, and he knew that this, like all his other trials, would pass. In the meantime, he immersed himself in frequencies that he knew were real.

**X x X**

Blaster was in his quarters, lying on the berth and staring up at the ceiling with his optics half-dimmed.

Mikaela pulled through alright. He had had his fears, at first. She had lost too much energon, and he wasn't sure if she even had the will to go on. The emotional blow must have been terrible.

But she was a fighter, he had to give her that. She had been discharged from the med-bay sooner than expected, and she was already getting up and about without wincing. Her frequencies, when Blaster checked them, were quiet, but steady, and strong.

She was already getting ready to win round two.

He had wanted to help her, but he hadn't done enough. He had underestimated Soundwave, and they had paid the price. Soundwave would not make the same mistakes; it would be a long time before an opportunity to get Sam back would come again.

But he would be ready…and Mikaela would be ready, too.

He would go to her, offer to teach her. Soundwave's power over Sam had been tremendous, all due to the frequencies that chained the human. He needed to be freed by the same means. Mikaela showed talent, and she seemed a proficient learner, once she made up her mind. And Bumblebee, though his frequencies had been trained for his scouting position, could be trained in other ways, too.

They needed to grow, they needed to change, so that they wouldn't be so helpless the next time.

Blaster, and all the others, had much to teach them.

But Blaster knew that he himself still had much to learn.

He had let Soundwave get to him…again.

Blaster let his thoughts and the thoughts of his cassettes wash over him for a while, calming him…until he felt someone's presence on the other side of his firewalls.

Blaster and his cassettes prepared their defences, but Soundwave had come alone. They couldn't feel any other frequencies.

Soundwave waited patiently, on the other side of the firewall. He opened a channel, and waited for Blaster to connect.

_Don't do it, Blaster, _Ramhorn cautioned.

_It's a trick, _Eject said.

But Soundwave wasn't leaving.

_What do you think he wants? _Rewind asks.

_I don't know, _Blaster said. _Watch the walls. _

_You're not really going to do this? _Steeljaw asked, incredulous. Her siblings' protests drowned out the individual words.

_He's no__t leaving. It's a harmless channel. Besides…I want to ask him about Sam._

To say that they disliked Blaster's decision was an understatement; but they backed down. They could watch out for him, if Soundwave tried anything.

Blaster made the connection.

_What do you want? _he asked.

Silence.

Blaster made to close the channel.

_Your little one, _Soundwave said suddenly. _What is her status?_

Now it was Blaster's turn to remain silent. He was amazed that the same mech who would kidnap, mutilate and reprogram and youngling and take another youngling hostage would ask such a question. He was more surprised to find that Soundwave's concern felt sincere. In technopathic communication, it was extremely difficult to fake emotion and to lie, one of the reasons why Blaster's "conversation" right now was breaching several protocols, as it was very easy to unintentionally leak information.

But then again, Soundwave was a master.

Either Soundwave had some sort of twisted sense of honour, or he was a fan of what humans liked to call "mind-fuck." Blaster was steadily leaning towards the latter.

_Why do you ask? _he said finally.

Silence, yet again.

_How's Sam? _he asked instead. _What have you done to him, Soundwave? _

_Sonar is functioning, that is all you need to know. _Another moment's silence, and then he added, _He is one of mine; you need not worry about his welfare. _

_Have you erased his memories, like you did last time? _

_Sonar remembers little from our altercation. _

Blaster kept his frequencies at a safe neutral level, not showing his revulsion at Soundwave's act.

_Your little one? _Blaster was silent, but Soundwave was patient. Despite protests from his cassettes, Blaster finally said, stiffly and reluctantly, _She sustained no major injuries._

Soundwave cut the connection almost immediately, too soon for Blaster to gauge any reaction, and Blaster welcomed the relief that silence brought.

**X x X**

Barricade tried not to feel surprised when Soundwave appeared at the deserted rec room. They were silent for a while as he got himself a cube of high grade, and Barricade sloshed around whatever was at the bottom of his.

Soundwave sat beside him, a few stools away.

"I must thank-you," Soundwave said finally. "For your assistance in the retrieval of one of my team memberes."

Barricade shrugged off the thanks. "Not a problem. How is he doing? Any virus?"

"No," Soundwave said, and all of a sudden he looked tired. "Just a few setbacks. He will heal."

"You know I'll always be happy to look out for the little guy, if you need the help."

"Thank-you," he said, almost awkwardly. Barricade shrugged it off yet again. When Soundwave spoke again, his voice had regained its usual, professional, polished tone. "You have sustained injuries."

"Nothing I couldn't handle."

"How did you know that Sonar was missing?"

"The little glitches told me," Barricade said, gesturing slightly to the pile of black-and-grey, all the New-cons resting with each other, though why they should choose the rec room as their nursery, Barricade would never understand. "You shouldn't have left them hanging like that," he continued lightly. "They woke me right outta recharge, what with 'em howling."

"I apologize for your inconvenience. I was too distracted."

"Yeah, I know." They sat for awhile in a friendly silence, and then Barricade finally downed the rest of his cube and then said, "I'm glad you got your glitch back. Now I'm off for some well-earned rest."

Soundwave gave a small nod, and Barricade disappeared into the shadows.

**X x X**

Prowl and Blaster didn't really talk about what each other had been doing on-scene, outside of reporting to Optimus, of course. Blaster didn't ask how Prowl knew that they were in trouble; Prowl didn't ask Blaster how he knew that Bumblebee and Mikaela were off on their own solo mission.

They knew that they were there. For now, that was enough.

"You should have seen him, Prowl," Blaster said quietly as both mechs nursed their high-grade in the empty rec room. "He was coming with us freely."

"Do you truly believe that it was Samuel James Witwicky, and not some faulty programming?" Prowl asked carefully.

Blaster looked up at him, his optics a deep, steady blue. "It was him, despite everything. He had changed, that's for sure. He was pretty messed in the head, too. But at the end of the day, he would have chosen Bumblebee and Mikaela, if Soundwave had not intervened."

"Do you think he remembers us?"

"Soundwave has wiped his memories—as much as he could, anyway. He couldn't afford to have him holding sentiments towards any Autobots."

"What have you told Mikaela and Bumblebee?"

"Nothing yet. I don't know if I should."

"You would give them false hope?"

"I don't want to take away their hope. When Soundwave first took him, he suppressed his memories. In a Cybertronian, that memory-wiping would have been complete. But Sam still had an inkling of who Mikaela and Bumblebee were. He remembered them, despite Soundwave's efforts. He may still remember them now, somehow, in a way that Soundwave can't wipe away completely."

"You believe that he could do this?"

"He has surprised me before. I wouldn't rule it out."

There was a pause as each took a drink of their high-grade.

"I heard you had a run-in with Barricade," Blaster said. "Looks like he dented you up pretty badly, too."

Prowl shrugged. "I handled it."

"I know you did." Blaster watched Prowl for a while. "It's amazing, isn't it? How we all thought that Sam was reprogrammed, but underneath it all…despite all things, Mikaela and Bumblebee were right in the end."

"What are you saying?"

"I don't know," Blaster said, shaking his head. "You know, Prowl," he continued delicately. "Reprogramming…it's a strange thing, isn't it? I mean…who can say who is who?"

Prowl was silent, before finally saying, "I do not know. I used to be so sure, before…" _Before he was proven wrong and Sonar did prove to be Sam. _He didn't need to say those words; they were writ all over his frequencies.

"I'm sorry," Blaster said.

"You don't have to apologize," Prowl said. "It has…been haunting me, too. Whoever Barricade is…he has still performed many atrocities. Whoever Barricade proves to be, whether his own mech, a virus, or really…or really my brother, I will deal with it."

"I know." There was another pause, and Blaster said, "I'll help you, if you want." It was an awkward thing to say, but Prowl was his friend.

"Thank-you," Prowl said. Another long pause, and Prowl carefully asked, "And about Soundwave?"

"I think…that I need help, too. To deal with him."

"You know you can always come to me for help."

"Thanks, Prowl. Appreciate it. You know, you ever think, maybe if the both of us asked for help…maybe we would have been better able to give help, too."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought I could deal with Soundwave."

"You have done so admirably."

"But I let him get to me. I was wrong, to think I could do it by myself." Blaster was quiet, and then in a hurried, shamed tone, he said, "I failed them."

"Blaster…"

"Soundwave shouldn't have been there. I should have been able to block Sam from him, or at least tell them that he was coming. He…he _snuck up _on me."

"You blame yourself?"

"I have played a hand in this loss."

Prowl considered this, and then carefully said, "Perhaps, in our own ways, we all failed. Bumblebee and Mikaela did not understand their friend's misplaced loyalty to Soundwave. You did not realize the extent of Soundwave's obsession with his newest addition. And I…I did not listen to what Bumblebee and Mikaela had to say. I did not understand their hope. I underestimated their loyalty to their friend just as I underestimated Soundwave."

"Seems we all have a lot to learn, huh, Prowl? But then again…what is life but a series of lessons?"

Prowl inclined his head. "I suppose so…however harsh those lessons may be."

"At least we walked away, and can say that there will be a next time."

Prowl agreed, and they fell once again to silence. Then, Prowl suddenly remembered something. "Soundwave said something to you," he said.

"Pardon?"

"Bumblebee mentioned…that Soundwave said something to you, just as he was approaching. What was it?"

Blaster looked confused, and then realized what Prowl was talking about. He looked away.

"You don't have to answer," Prowl said, "if you don't want to."

Blaster finally said, "He told me that he never lied to me."

Prowl just shook his head.

**X x X**

It was just another day, really, when Stockade, one of the strongest New-cons, came to the conclusion that he really didn't care about the glory and honour of Cybertron. What was Cybertron to him, or to any of his pack-mates? It was a vague idea, a fantasy world that they didn't know and didn't want to know and didn't care to live in.

But he still felt like fighting every day, though the training hurt and was sometimes boring and monotonous, and sometimes seemed to only serve as the elder Decepticons' favourite method to keep the New-cons out of the way.

It was the end of another exhausting day—was it just him, or were the training sessions getting steadily more brutal?—and he sat down, his back to the wall, and Sonar wandered over to him. His drones stayed behind, as they were immediately seized and cuddled by the other New-cons who decided that right _there _was a good place for a nice, long recharge.

He and Sonar sat in companionable silence, calming down and recouping their strength, when Stockade asked, out of the blue, "Why do we fight?"

Sonar looked at him oddly. "What do you mean?"

"I was just thinking—"

Sonar made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Stockade glared at him. "I was thinking," he repeated, "how all the Decepticons are going on about Cybertron, and all that, and I was thinking: why?"

"Um…I'm not sure why," Sonar said. "I fight for Soundwave, for Ravage, for Rumble and Frenzy and Lazerbeak and Ratbat…I fight for the New-cons…I fight for you."

"For me?"

"Yeah. I mean, I don't know Cybertron. It's another planet to me. I don't think that I _can _fight for it. But I can fight for you."

Stockade kind of looked at him, and then said. "Yeah. I guess that you and Soundwave and the New-cons and the Decepticons are the world to us."

Sonar nodded. "The world that matters, anyway." He leaned back, and then said, "Um…don't tell Soundwave?"

Stockade just laughed. "Glad you're okay, Sonar."

Sonar's frequencies gained an amused air. "I'm glad I'm okay, too."

Slipping into recharge with his pack-mates all around him, Stockade decided that Sonar was right. His family was worth fighting for. His family was the part of the world that mattered to him, even if some days, it hurt, and some days, he just didn't feel like fighting anymore.

But this was what they had to do, wasn't it? Become stronger, so that no one can take what was beloved away from them.

He knew that they had to change. He knew that they had to get stronger. But for now, he allowed himself the childish luxury of believing that things wouldn't change, that they would be together for always.

**X x X**

Prowl found Mikaela, outside the base and staring up into the clouds. He thought that this was a bad time to say what he wanted to say, but, without turning her gaze away from the sky, she asked, "Come to say I told you so?"

Prowl didn't so much as flinch at the venom in her words.

"You were wrong, you know," she continued, her voice rising. "He was there. He would have come with us. He was starting to remember us. He wasn't a virus, he was just Sam." She finally looked at him, her optics bright, as if daring him to say otherwise. "He was confused, and lonely, and desperate, and he was coming with us, and despite everything that you told us, he—"

"I know."

"And he—What did you say?"

"I said that I know," he said quietly. "I spoke with Blaster; he told me everything. I must apologize. Bumblebee, and Samuel, and Bumblebee, have proven me wrong. I will no longer oppose your decision to fight for him, when you decide to do so again."

"You know we will try again," Mikaela said, her optics still bright, though her tone softened. "We'll get him next time."

"Yes, I know. And I will help you, if you will accept my assistance."

The only answer she could give was a shocked silence. After all this time of telling them that Sam was _gone, _that it was useless, that they'd only be hurt…

Then Prowl held his arms out, stiffly, but only because he was an Autobot who was unused to such a gesture.

The action was so familiar and so _human _that Mikaela almost wanted to cry. But instead, she returned Prowl's embrace. All her anger at him melted away, at that moment. She was ready to admit that he was worried for them, from day one. Everything that he had done, it was what he thought was best for Mikaela and for Bumblebee. At the end of the day, Prowl wasn't an enemy.

"Thank-you," she said. "For looking out for us."

He didn't say anything. Perhaps he couldn't think of anything to say. Perhaps nothing even needed to be said.

**X x X**

They had always treated Sonar's technopathy and his drones as his primary weapons, but it took a very good scare for them to realize, almost too late, that Sonar couldn't rely on those alone. He had been in weapons training with the others, and was catching up to the others quickly enough. He didn't remember a lot from the incident, but perhaps he remembered enough to not ask why there was this sudden addition in his training regime.

They had expected his memories to return. Now, many orns later, they had accepted that perhaps he would never fully remember.

Ravage thought that it might be for the best. She remembered how his frequencies had been, when they had gone to save him. How they had tangled with the frequencies of the white femme and the yellow mech, and how it had pained Soundwave when he was forced to cut the connections, to tear Sonar's frequencies away from theirs, when they were taking him back home. Sonar had formed a strange, sick sort of attachment to the mech and to the femme who had taken him; if he didn't remember them, they couldn't use any sentimental feelings he had towards them the next time they came for him.

Nothing would hurt him, or any of her siblings, for that matter, as long as she was around.

She heard a gradual change in his frequencies, the start of that little melody that his frequencies made when he was asleep. She stalked through the shadows of the New-con part of the base, went over to the little New-con cluster, and extricated him gently from the heap. She rested right next to the little ones.

He stirred slightly, and then curled up next to her, muttering something unintelligible.

She thought that he had fallen back to sleep, but then he said, very quietly, "Who is screaming?"

"Are you hearing things again?" she asked him. He didn't answer, but moved closer to her.

"They're really sad," he continued. "They miss someone."

She indulged his momentary strangeness, tilting her audios in a position where she could best pick up any sound waves.

"There is nothing. No one around."

"I could have sworn…"

"There is nothing," she insisted. "You are here, with me. There are only our voices here." He seemed to accept that. In any case, he moved on to another subject.

"Is Soundwave angry?"

"What do you mean?"

"Whatever I did, I didn't mean it."

"We know. Now rest."

He quieted, and presently that little tune in her mind resumed. She settled down, too, curling up around him, feeling her spark pulse come into rhythm with the heartbeat of the being beside her, indulging in the silence and in the dark, if only for the moment.

And only for this moment, she allowed herself the luxury of fantasizing that nothing would take her family away from her.

But if all these vorns of fighting had taught her anything, it was that the Autobots would never give up. She didn't know why they wanted her brother, but she didn't need to know. What was important was that they had tried to take him away, and they would certainly try again.

And she and her family would be ready.

**X x X**

Bumblebee looked at his partner, as the both of them stood outside, under the beautiful starry night.

Mikaela was growing, he noted. Already there was something different in her stance, a kind of maturity that she didn't have before.

And maybe he was changing, too.

He knew, without her telling him, that she had taken up Blaster's offer in tutoring her. Blaster had offered to teach him, too. To teach him to fight, to teach him to win in the world of frequencies that Sam would always know, whether he be Autobot or Decepticon.

They wouldn't fight him.

But they would fight for him.

There was a difference, and Bumblebee knew in his spark that he knew what that difference was.

Bumblebee remembered all those nights, though it seemed like a lifetime ago, that he and Mikaela and Sam would stay outside, under the stars, whispering to each other and keeping each other company in the long, dark night.

It would be like that again, Bumblebee was sure. It wouldn't be exactly the same—they had all changed, after all—but they would be together again.

One day, both Mikaela and Bumblebee would be strong enough. One day, just one day…

And their past collided with their present, and at that moment there was only the future.

**X x X**

It had been a very long time after his troublesome incident, and they were all moving on. Training had started again, and his siblings weren't panicking anymore if he should be out of their sights. Enough time had passed. He had healed, and they were moving on. Soundwave's frequencies resumed their watchful state, no longer suffocating him, but always around...always protecting.

He was half-asleep when Soundwave came into the room to talk a little with Barricade. Soundwave's frequencies, feeling him stirring, enveloped his, bidding him to go back to sleep. He didn't put up any fuss, but waited until Soundwave was out of the room and his frequencies went back to their positions before fully rousing himself. He carefully pulled himself out of the New-con pile—considering the New-cons' ability to find him and their penchant of taking him back with them, he'd probably be back before even he realized it.

He placed his hand along the corridor walls, and with his eyes half-closed he followed the frequencies of his creator.

Soundwave was not surprised to see him at his workroom door. Slowly, he turned around in his seat. "Come."

He entered into the room slowly. Soundwave was working on something at the desk. He climbed into Soundwave's awaiting hands, and moved to the crook of his arm, right next to his creator's spark chamber.

"What is it?" he asked, motioning to the pieces and parts on the table that, to his eyes, emanated a slight warmth.

"A new drone model," Soundwave said, picking up the skeleton of the creature. "For you."

"For me?"

"Yes. It is time you moved onto the frequencies of other kinds of drones."

"You'll teach me?"

Soundwave's frequencies gave an amused pulse, almost like a warm laugh. "Of course. Who else?"

"Will I be as strong as you one day?"

"Maybe. If you work for it."

Soundwave's frequencies enveloped his, warm and comforting and always present. "Do you still not remember anything?" Soundwave asked.

He began to shake his head, but then something came to him. "I think I remember…Blaster," he said, snatching at a vague memory. Carefully, he added, "I was scared. He was nice to me."

Soundwave turned away from him, his frequencies still, and for a moment he thought that he had said something wrong. Then Soundwave said, "He always was always…nice."

He leaned back in his creator's arms, letting his frequencies roam around as Soundwave's attention turned back to his project. He lightly touched the frequencies of the New-cons and of his siblings, all of them always close by. He stretched his frequencies as far as he was able.

There was something else, too.

The voices he had been hearing had gone, now, just as he had predicted. The illusions had given way to something real.

There were other frequencies out there, calling to him. He was sure that Soundwave knew, too, but let him deal with it in his own way. They were strong, but quiet, as though from very far away.

But unlike all those other voices from Out There, he wasn't afraid of these frequencies.

Soundwave once told him that he would know who he was destined to be with, because their frequencies would resonate with his in a way that could only be described as _right. _As much as he respected the other Decepticons like Lord Starscream and Barricade, his frequencies did this only with Soundwave, with his siblings, with his pack-mates, and now, with those two beings who were waiting for him.

He regarded those frequencies, cherishing them and holding them close to his heart, along with the frequencies of his siblings and his pack-mates and his creator.

One day, he'd be strong enough to go to them.

Soundwave's frequencies called him back to his mind's sanctuary, and he obeyed him. The two strange, yet familiar frequencies were still there, but muted for now by the frequencies of those he knew.

He would find whoever was calling him, when he was strong enough. And then, with them, and with his family, and with his pack-mates, maybe then the crying would stop. Maybe then, he would be complete.

But for now, he had Soundwave, and he had his siblings, and he had the New-cons. For now, that was enough.


End file.
